Saltwater Room
by natural selection
Summary: 'Your name is VRISKA SERKET. You are a MUTANT and so have been EXILED FROM SOCIETY and moved to a QUARANTINED AREA. Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.' Dystopian, apocalyptic sci-fi AU using major elements from canon. Beta trolls are now mutated humans, sent away and conditioned into soldiers for the Condesce in a Battle Royale style story. But not all is as it seems. c32 progress:3/5
1. Lousy goddamn stupid radiation

**COVER (fullsize): **Link on my profile!

**Rated T for the frequent use of strong language, strong graphic violence and with a fair amount of romance, but no sexual content.**

**Pairings: **Tavros/Vriska (main), Eridan/Feferi, Aradia/Equius, Feferi/Sollux, Tavros/Gamzee, Dave/Jade, Eridan/Karkat (some of these are no longer in the story, and more will be added as the story progresses)

**Synopsis: **Alternate Universe fic set in around 2090. There may be spoilers and some resemblance to plot in Homestuck, but most will deviate a fair amount.

Takes place on a somewhat dystopian earth in the near future. A nuclear war happened in the past, and though civilisation has since recovered, a number of children have been born with strange symptoms from the radiation released. Vriska is an ordinary human who finds herself turning into a grey skinned, horned mutant and is taken, along with other mutants, by the Condesce to what most of humanity believe to be a containment facility, though in reality they are being conditioned into soldiers.

First they must fight against other mutants for the right to enter her custody, before the story follows the lives of the twelve beta trolls as they either escape from, or accept her Imperious Condescension's will to capture and destroy the earth.

But not all is as it seems with these mutations.

The story is sci-fi and dystopian mostly, with a Battle Royale/Hunger Games feel to it and later on becomes post-apocalyptic/post-war, and again is accordingly gory, though the story is focused on the characters, so there is not an overabundance of violence! :)**  
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Main characters are the beta trolls and the beta kids. Ancestors and later the dancestors feature as well, as well as a few OCs to bulk out the world, but they aren't by any means the main characters.

**Homestuck belongs to Andrew Hussie**

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><p>It was apparent from the first grey mole, that Vriska Serket was in for some deep, deep shit. At first, she had assumed that the innocent blob on her forearm was a speck of paint, and when it refused to budge, that it had dyed her skin. Another speck of this grey appeared, followed by another in the following month. Around the time of these, she had been painting a rather magnificent portrait of herself as the persona of Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, her character in RPGs. Although little grey had been used on such a painting, she was in complete denial about the situation, so convinced herself that those were the reasons.<p>

When more of the pesky grey spots appeared, around ten or so, she took to painting over them in a more convincing brown, stopping her mum from being nosy, seeing the grey splotches, flipping out and getting her thrown away somewhere nasty with no internet.

Her first completely grey patch of skin formed on the inside of her left thigh, a little way above her knee, nearly four months after the first mole. This was easily hidden, as long as she did not get a sudden craving for short shorts (unlikely) or went swimming (her family was not one for swimming anyway). The patch, unlike the moles, spread outwards at a rate of about a millimetre a day, joined by a second patch near the small of her back. About a month after the patches, something far harder to conceal began. The whites of her eyes began to turn a vivid yellow hue. It was now that she figured it was time to tell her mum.

Mum, or Spidermum as Vriska liked to call her behind her back, was a domineering control freak of a woman. A trait that Vriska had inherited. Her mum disliked anything being out of her power, and when she found out that her daughter had a rapidly spreading 'problem', her option was not to weep from fear and worry, but to hole her up in the basement until further notice, concerned that it could potentially be contagious to her other offspring. Spidermum was so named due to her love of all things arachnid, with spiders running freely throughout the house, cobwebs hanging casually on doorways and windows alike. This love of arachnids had, too, been passed on to her first child. Spidermum was proud of this; she did not want Vriska to grow up being a simpering girl afraid of all but puppies and kittens, she would be strong, unafraid of all. This eventually led to the girl becoming a huge and renowned bitch to cope with all around her, easily bored with her 'weak' classmates and oddly enough, a strong believer in luck.

Vriska had suspected for a long time that the reason for the controlling attitude of her mother, was that when she was pregnant with Vriska, her boyfriend of the time, a young Spanish man, got one whiff of the fact that he had knocked up his eighteen year old girlfriend, and ran off. Leaving his daughter to be raised solely by the mother. Sure they got by, but ever since, her mother had not let a single thing escape her. From then on, Vriska always wondered why Spidermum had not just gotten an abortion and carried on with her life, but whatever.

But locking her daughter away from the sunlight, of course, did little to help, and by the end of the year Vriska's skin was ashy grey, with tan bands on her face and arms. The final fronts of a losing war with the grey. Her body could no longer fight it, but her mother would not give up, so she remained hidden in the basement, her only source of entertainment the computer. Being a massive fan of Fatal Online Role Play (FORP), she decided that there could be worse situations; at least the wi-fi signal was pretty good.

School friends enquired her whereabouts at first, wondering where she had been for so long, but she ignored them, setting on working her way up the levels. If she worked hard enough, she could finally overtake some of her trashy schoolmate's scores. Yes. She would try to gain all of the levels available to her 'Petticoat Seagrift' class. All of them. But as time went on, and her boredom increased, along with her frustration at being pent up, she took to killing fellow player's avatars. It _was_ part of the game after all. She couldn't claim to enjoy it, but it stopped her from smashing her head on the walls for fun. Spidermum would probably have a fit if she saw her daughters pretty blue blood spilt all over the concrete floor. Three times a day, food was pushed through the door, and each morning, a change of clothes appeared next to her.

arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]

AG: Hey 8itch!

AG: We were meant to 8egin a raid twenty minutes ago.

AG: Don't think you can avoid me.

AG: Or are you scared may8e?

AG: ;;;;)

AG: Is the little pupa 8a8y scared she'll get hit?

Vriska set out the bait and waited for the reply, but half an hour later, with still no response she gave up.

AG: Fine. Your loss.

arachnidsGrip [AG] has ceased trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]

If she had been inclined in such a direction, she would have hit the keyboard in frustration, but managed to resist the urge, no matter how delightfully satisfying it would be. Terezi, one of her few friends, was not online, and it was not as if she could magically make her switch her computer on or anything… although such powers would be fun.

Bluh, her head was killing her. For reasons she guessed were to do with the greying of the skin, she had been getting splitting headaches on either side of her temple. Some days it was bad enough that she would remain in bed all day feeling sorry for herself. When she was particularly lucky, her mother would leave her with some paracetamol, though it was not really strong enough to hold back the pain. But it was a nice thought. As nice as Spidermum got.

* * *

><p>Another week passed before a visitor came into her basement. He was a portly, old gentleman by the name of Dr. Deaff. A specialist, as he informed her, in mutations. And the dread that had been slowly rising within Vriska began a sudden, steep rise until it reached the level of 'oh shiiiiiiiit'.<p>

"You must be Vriska, I expect. Your mother has told me all about you." he said, shaking her hand. Spidermum's form was silhouetted in the doorway, a row of stairs currently her only obstacle, along with her mum, to freedom. But there would be no escaping past her mother. She was oddly strong given her looks. "Please, do come sit down Ms Serket."

Reluctant to enter the room where her daughter had been festering for months, she shook her head.

"You have no need to worry, madam. I can assure you that her condition is not contagious." Pulling up another chair from the corner, her mum sat a hesitant distance from Vriska, not fully believing the doctor's words. "Now then. Where is the switch in here? I can barely see you with this low light."

"That's kind of the point, dumbass." Vriska sighed, irritated at how thick the doctor was being. Yet either he did not hear her, or ignored her, as there was no visible reaction. The obnoxiously bright lights were flicked on, and the grey-skinned girl saw the extent of the problem. Her body was still holding the line on her arms, the horizontal stripes of soft, brown skin boldly showing.

Gently picking her arm up with his wizened hands, he prodded the differently coloured bands. Curiously, the grey areas were tougher, almost, in comparison to her normal skin. "Your arms are holding out longer than most. Very interesting. As for the whites of your eyes, they are completely yellow now, although there's a large amount of irritation. Have you been rubbing them?"

"Seriously? Of course I have. Do you know how much they ache?" He was unperturbed, perhaps used to such behaviour. "I can barely sleep at night through the pain."

"Have you tried ignoring it?" he suggested, leaning his face on a fist propped on the chair's armrest.

"Have you tried coming up with ideas that aren't completely shit?" Vriska spat back. Truth be told, she was enjoying it; she had not spoken face to face with someone for a long time. Sure, driving the man away was not the best idea for a long conversation, but she was annoyed. "I've been getting headache, toothache, eyeache, itching all over my skin. Puberty is shit enough already without all this bull. You're a doctor, right? Can you fix it?"

"I can see that the changes you are experiencing are making you irritable. Now, before we leave, are you having any issues with your head? In particular, these two areas just above your ears." he enquired. She gave a curt nod. As if this deemed permission, he ran his fingers over the area of skull he had specified, finding hair fell away willingly as he pulled his fingers away. By the time he cleared away the hair, she was left with two bald patches, looking as if someone had cut a ping pong ball in half and stuck it on either side of her head. The lumps were covered in a fine, fur-like coat, with something that was evidently going to be hard growing underneath.

"Wait, before _we_ leave? We as in you and mum?"

"Oh, no. It appears that there is nothing amiss with your mother's genetic makeup."

Aiming for sarcasm, she said, "Is a straight answer too much to ask for?"

"Quite, Ms Serket. Now, what you must understand is that what we are doing is for the best. With the recent outbreaks, we simply cannot afford to have your kind running around willy-nilly."

"Are you senile? You just said that this lame ass shit wasn't contagious. Why would you need to move me if it isn't going to spread?" she demanded.

"Because your appearance causes some significant distress, and what with the current state of the country, we can't allow this to happen." The doctor pushed his glasses further up his face once more. "Surely you want to see us back to how we once were, before the war? If people think things are going back to normal once more, then things will settle. There are riots nearly every week in various parts of the country over political matters as it is. Imagine how much worse it would get with people like you causing alarm."

"You can't just deny that I exist! I'm stood right in front of you! This is making as much sense as the situation in the first place." she paused for breath. "You're a doctor aren't you? Isn't it your job to make people better? Or are you as bad at that as you are at remembering things from three seconds ago?"

The doctor's eyes narrowed before he stood, "Our base is located in New Mexico in the United States, which is where we're taking you. You are allowed to bring one item with you, not including prescription items. Choose wisely. You may have ten minutes with your family before I return to collect you. Of course, you may leave earlier than that if you wish." The door was then shut.

Looking up at her mother, Vriska was not sure what to say. After all, her mum had essentially just sold her off to this man, unwittingly or not. Not to mention the whole 'locked in a basement' thing. That was pretty bad as well. Deciding to then ignore her presence, the grey-skinned girl began rummaging around in the drawer of her current bedside table for a small box, in which was a set of eight eight-sided dice. Once found, she slipped it into her pocket and turned to face her mum.

Opening her mouth in preparation for a suitably sarcastic yet slightly heartfelt goodbye, she was interrupted by her sisters footsteps plodding down the stairs.

"So it really isn't contagious, right?" At twelve, only a year younger than Vriska, her sister was more similar to her personality wise than she liked to admit. With sandy blonde hair and grey eyes, she had inherited her mother's characteristics more than her sister had, and was the result of a rebound a year later. This time, her mother had ordered the poor man off, removing any chance of him walking out on her like with the previous boyfriend. "Because I really don't want to turn out like you."

"Thanks, brat." Vriska replied instinctively, barely taking in what she had actually said. "So… I guess this is the last time I'll be seeing you for a while."

"Huh?" The girl cast a confused look to both members of her family. "Where are you going? Isn't he going to heal you?"

Spidermum shook her head.

"But isn't that his job?"

Vriska spat, "That's what I thought too. Seems he's so shitty at it, that he's just going to ship me off to America instead. Doesn't want to scare the neighbours or something. So, I doubt we'll meet again soon."

"But that's stupid!"

"Yeah, well it's life." the girl replied, trying to keep her frustration to a minimum, but failing tremendously, resulting in snapping back. "I'll see you later, brat, mum."

In an odd display of affection, she hugged each member of the family curtly, then headed off to the doctor. Well. As her mum always joked, that's why she had two daughters. One for backup.

A large van awaited her in the front garden. Grey, ironically enough, with an area in the back where she would be placed in and removed. From what she could see, there were a large number of locks and bolts on the door, and on the inside a mixture of bedding materials for the trip across the Atlantic. She had seen such removals of her kind before. Most violent and horrid.

Deciding to exit in a dignified fashion, Vriska hopped up into the back of the van, and sat down in the pile of blankets and pillows, noting the dents on the inside of the vehicle. The doors were slammed and bolted shut. The engine started and the van began it's long journey across the pond to America.

* * *

><p>Your name is VRISKA SERKET.<p>

You are a master of EXTREME ROLE PLAYING. You can't get enough of it, or really any game of high stakes and chance.

You are somewhat of an APOCALYPSE NERD. You are fascinated by end of the world scenarios, and enjoy thinking up DOOMSDAY DEVICES for the hell of it. You often consult issues to your MAGIC EIGHT BALLS, but routinely destroy them in frustration over the PUZZLING GUARANTEED INACCURACY of their predictions. With each you destroy, you add to an insurmountable stockpile of TERRIBLE LUCK.

Your skin has been turning an ALARMING SHADE OF GREY recently. This is because the background radiation from a WORLDWIDE SEMI-NUCLEAR WAR corrupted your cells when you were still a bundle of stem cells. This makes you a MUTANT. This would be pretty freaking AWESOME if it was not happening in real life.

Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: I fixed a few of the errors in this, mainly in Vriska's speech as I was making her sound waaaay too posh!

The title of this is from the Owl City song 'The Saltwater Room', from his album 'Maybe I'm Dreaming'. This is because it's what initially inspired me to write it... c;

Anyway, so I saw that Mr Hussie took rather a lot of amusement from fanfictions, which initially made me hesitant to post this, then I decided, stuff it, and did it anyway.

Thanks for reading! ^^


	2. A long, hot ride

So. Much. Sunlight.

Hailing from the UK, Vriska was used to the occasional sunny spell throughout most of the year, perhaps a few solid days in summer if lucky. But New Mexico, whoa.

After being driven from her small southern town to Luton airport, the van compartment she was in opened and she was put inside another locked area, this time on a private jet. Inside she was greeted by a pretty girl with the same condition as her; the grey skin and yellow whites to the eyes. The same raised bumps on either side of the temples, except hers looked sore and weepy, a yellowish pus oozing from broken skin. She smiled at Vriska, offering a companionable, "Bonjour." dark hair shifting around her. But judging by the dull, red scabs, she was particularly low on the hemospectrum, so Vriska ignored her, as she had been raised to do. Seemingly used to this, the girl shrugged and went back to staring at the wall, curled into an upright foetal position.

A decade or two prior to Vriska's conception, a war broke out over the dwindling oil reserves available to the developed world. Any oil rich country had long since holed up with their oil and banned any movement into and out of their country. And hell, if you were in a country that still had oil, like hell would you leave. There were still small amounts of oil in the North Pole, but activists were protecting it furiously, lobbying and often destroying any organisation that tried to get near it. Other than buying the entire area or bombing it, there was little chance of getting the oil, or rather, the theoretical oil there.

So instead, the heads of governments decided the next best thing to do would be start wars with other countries to get their final reserves. There was the potential of extra fuel, and with luck, they would get rid of a couple thousand of their mouths to feed. Worldwide, populations were almost at eight billion, so naturally there was very little food to go around. The less people, the better in terms of food production. Farmers were now in high demand. But what they did not take into account was that many countries harboured missiles perfect for attacking other countries. And so when Europe was threatened, for the first time in a while, the UK worked together with its continent and defended them from the other countries, while equally attacking and trying to loot others for oil.

When it finally ended with the fall of the oil empire, countries were lost, confused like scared children separated from their parents. And yet, nuclear fusion came along, sweeping them up and setting them upon their feet once more with the help of renewable energies, and for a while, everything was okay once more. Orphaned children found new homes, families rebuilt homes, communities, and farms were set up.

But a group of overly rich and snobby scientists decided that it was unjust that they should be thought of as the same caste as the person next door to them, merely because of their current situation. And so, they devised a strange virus that would take into account how closely they were related to the royalty of the country (current or most recent) by genetics, simply so that when things were back to normal, there would be none of the whole 'we are all equal, joined by the devastation that befell us' attitude. The closer you were related, the more violet the colour of your blood would be, and one would be caught in a violent flu as all the red blood cells within changed completely. The further away you got your blood changed through royal purple, indigos, blues, greens, yellows, oranges and browny reds. The original colour of blood was lost… although there were rumours that, like with every virus, there were some with inbuilt natural immunity whose blood remained the same colour. It was also said that the heads of state saw them as a reminder of the past, and killed them. Naturally, a great deal of people decided that it was insanity, but they were ignored, and the virus released anyway. Those who opposed the hemospectrum were deemed jealous peasants, the nobility suddenly found in many turning people arrogant., and they were locked up.

How they changed the red pigment in the red blood cells, derived from the iron in the haemoglobin that picked up the oxygen in first place… well, it was a mystery to most. Needless to say, red blood cells were a topic that had since been dropped from the A-Level biology curriculum.

And then the mutations began…

The rest of their plane journey was spent in a slightly awkward silence. Bland, white walls surrounded the two of them, with the same bundles of blankets strewn across the floor for them to wrap around themselves. Without heating, it was bloody cold. Primarily, Vriska had refused the blankets, deciding that she should set an example to the French low blood, but she had only been wearing her thin pyjamas when she was taken from her house, so soon was so cold that she let the kind girl drape a couple of blankets over her shivering frame. After that, she did not give her such cool, indifferent glances. A small meal of dried fruits -apricot, grape and plum- was given to each of them, along with some milk in a container that looked suspiciously like a baby's bottle, presumably to stop the liquid inside from spilling everywhere. It made her feel like a toddler, but she was too thirsty to give a damn.

After their simple meal, Vriska muttered, "And still better than mum's cooking." In a totally ironic way, of course. She was not certain how much the French girl understood of it, but judging by the snort of amusement, she got enough.

They arrived in New York first, following the long flight over the Atlantic Ocean. Their plane needed refuelling as far as Vriska could gather at first… or perhaps the pilot needed a break? But there was a co-pilot for that, so that option was ruled out. It was only when more of the grey-skinned mutant children were pushed inside that she understood they were being collected. It was two purple-blooded children, with strange fin-like protrusions on either side of their faces. One, a slightly chubby girl with weird goggles, the other, a strange, intense boy with a purple streak in his otherwise dark hair. For a few horror-filled seconds, Vriska wondered if that's what the lumps on her head would turn into, but then saw they, too, had the lumps above their face-fins. These two were royalty, and yet they too had been carelessly shoved into the back of the plane like commoners. She guessed that being a mutant automatically removed any privileges you had, silently musing, '_Presiding over all others regardless my ass_.'

The French girl greeted them as she had with Vriska, but from the male she received only a stony silence, similar to that that the blue-blood had offered. Yet the royal purple-blooded girl shook her hand warmly, conversing back in slightly accented French, surprising the two original passengers. In all fairness, most high bloods were complete arses, especially to a girl with blood as low on the hemospectrum as her.

"Bonjour, mon nom est Feferi! Et toi?" she said excitedly, although her French was slightly off. It was then when Vriska realised who they were. It was all over the news, a pair of orphans had been found with very high status blood in a rural area of Russia. One, Feferi Peixes, had direct linkage to the lost princess of Russia, Anastasia. The other, Eridan Ampora, was the descendant of a German queen. And from that day that they were found, they were boosted up to a near god-like status. Child stars. The fame went to Eridan's head, with Feferi remaining down to earth and sensible, although over excitable. Furthermore, as a joke, it seemed, the scientists who had developed the mutating virus had made it that the closest relation to Anastasia would have the highest possible blood caste, assuming that her linage had died out. Evidently it had not. But, it seemed that they still were not immune to mutations.

The maroon and purple bloods continued talking for a good deal of the second part of the flight, despite the other purple-blood trying to discourage his friend. Well, there was always going to be one jerk of a high blood. More than one, generally. Vriska, after noticing Eridan's glare returned it, honestly not giving a damn at the moment for his high-blood status. It was fun to act all domineering over low-bloods herself, but when it came to her respecting those higher than her… well, they had to earn that respect. Needless to say, Eridan was not.

For the next journey, Vriska was surprised to see the low blood sink off to sleep, using a folded blanket as a pillow, shortly followed by the arrogant Eridan, nodding off onto Feferi's shoulder. She was not sure how much of that had been an accident. Having never flown before, and rather enjoying the feeling, Vriska wanted to spend as much of this time awake as possible. If only there was actually a way to fly… nah, enough of that. There was not another way, other than an aeroplane, and there was fat chance of her going in a plane again after what was going to happen.

"Hi, I'm Feferi Peixes! What's your name?" Feferi asked, holding her hand out for Vriska to shake. Hesitantly, she took it, slightly confused as to what to do in situations such as shaking the hand of the highest possible blood caste.

"Vriska Serket. But you didn't need to say who you are. It's not like you're a low blood or anything."

The purple-blooded girl wrinkled her nose in distaste, "Please don't remind be about that. I'm kind of fed up of all this 'high blood low blood' rubbish. If I hadn't gotten this stupid mutation I would have seen to getting rid of the hemospectrum." She pouted, shifting to brush some hair from her face, jostling Eridan slightly. When he muttered something in his sleep she made a 'shh' noise, and he fell silent again. For a while, they did not speak, the blue-blood shocked at what Feferi had said. Only low bloods spoke of the removal of the caste system. To hear one with the highest blood type speak of wanting to get rid of it… it was odd, to be brutally honest.

Feferi broke the silence once more, "So, what item did you bring with you?"

"Uh… some dice. "

"Ooh, glub! Can I see?" the girl cried, way too excited than was necessary. Confused at the glubbing, Vriska nevertheless pulled out the box of dice from her dressing gown pocket. Nestled in the plush velvet of the box, the blue, eight-sided dice looked mysterious and precious, glinting like sapphires. "May I have a go? They look fun!"

Vriska hesitated, and then shut the box. "I've been having bad luck at the moment, I'd rather not. Besides, you'd have to move _him_, and I'd rather not have him grumping all over my ass again."

"Yeah, Eridan can be pretty… overbearing at times… well, all of the time." Wow, had she hit a sore spot? "But I'm sure he'll grow out of it. His voice has been going a bit weird, all high, then low, then high again. He already has a weird accent, so it makes him sound all wavy! Glub! So that's been making him kind of grumpier than usual."

As both of the purple-bloods were found at a young age, they were shipped off to New York of all places, and taught English there. While easy-going Feferi had near abandoned what slight accent she had, Eridan had not, and kept it with full pride. But having not heard him speak, Vriska would have to take the high blood's word for it; she highly doubted she would lie over something as insubstantial as her friends voice breaking, or his accent.

"Anyway, I brought my goggles with me. I just found them one day, back in Russia, and… I'm kinda fond of them. Why would anyone throw these away?"

"Gee, I don't know… they look kind of lame." she replied, barely thinking.

"Well, your dice are kind of lame!" Feferi cried back, startling Eridan awake.

"Is she botherin' you, Fef?" he demanded instantly.

"What's it to you, asshole?" Vriska shot back, butting in partially to hear him show more of his weird accent, also because he seemed easy to wind up.

"Wwhat's it to me? She's my Fef, that's wwhat." At this, Vriska burst into laughter at his pronunciation of the letter W, all wavy and odd, as well as the general sappiness of his words.

Smirking, she mimicked, "Wwhat? I didn't catch that."

"Low-life blue-blooded filth." he snarled.

"Eridan, don't be like this! Just ignore her for glubs sake!"

"Wwhat's that? You'll have to say it louder!" she sang, taunting him further, eager for an emotion release for the stress this whole mutant business was causing, and this complete tool was just the type. Although, honestly, she did not expect for him to lunge at her neck, trying to choke her. Excellent.

Grabbing either end of his ridiculous scarf, she yanked at it, choking him in return until his face turned an amusing shade of purple. Feferi and the French girl, who had since awakened, attempted to intervene with little progress. Vriska kneed him in the crotch, making him wince and falter in his throttling, before he returned the favour with a strong punch to her jaw. Good, she hated guys who held back simply because she was a girl.

"Arrête! S'il vous plaît!" the French girl ordered, grabbing Vriska and pulling her out from underneath the enraged purple-blood.

Feferi too restrained Eridan, seemingly stronger than she appeared at a glance. "Eridan! Stop this right now! She's not worth it!"

They glared at each other wildly, one grinning madly despite the cerulean blood leaking from a cut on a cheek, the other seething with rage. It seemed that one of the many rings on his fingers had cleaved her skin open when he had hit her. In all honestly, it stung like hell, but she was not about to admit such a fact. Both were panting heavily, their scuffle lasting nearly a minute in length.

One of the guards used for capturing the mutants if needed finally barged in; demanding to know what all the scuffling had been about. Vriska gave a disgustingly sugary smile and replied in a mock British accent, "We were just letting off a bit of steam, g'vner."

* * *

><p>They picked up their final passenger, a strange boy who seemed preoccupied with his iPhone, the item he had decided to take with him, presumably. Feferi tried striking up conversation with him as well, but Eridan stopped her, perhaps concerned that he could turn out to be a violent psycho like Vriska had. Although he said little to her, and what did come out had a fairly irritating lisp to it, from which she gathered he was called Thollux, or something like that. Probably Sollux considering the lisp. So, instead, the purple-blood spoke to the French girl, who turned out to be called Aradia. Well, that was fine with Vriska. Yet she continued to have a staring contest with Eridan, who was now seated next to 'Fef' at the opposite side of the aircraft. Man, was he easy to manipulate. It was ridiculously funny, actually.<p>

By the time they landed and were bundled into a minibus together, it was very early morning, a fine mist covering the world and their eyebrows, making the lumps on their heads ache with the cold. They were assured, however, that they should not worry, as it would soon heat up quite a bit. Well, they were certainly right with that bit.

Apparently, either the roads on the way to this centre were covered with a shocking amount of potholes, or their vehicle had no suspension, as they were thrown about painfully. As soon as the minibus began to move, Vriska yanked the seatbelt out and clipped it across her body securely. She did not want to be hurled across the bus, thank you very much. Sollux, still maddeningly tapping away at his iPhone's screen, dropped the gadget on one particularly bouncy section of road. As if he had lost a diamond, he franticly began searching the ground for it, finding it before the guards at the front of the bus noticed. There was a small nick on the screen now, but other than that, no damage.

The sun soon began to peep over the horizon line, and as it rose, so did the temperature inside. They began the journey at a mild thirteen degrees Celsius and only a few hours later, found themselves in temperatures over thirty degrees, although rigorous air conditioning kept it bearable. She would have thought that with such super secret organisations, stealing away mutants and hiding them away… they would have higher tech vehicles, but no. The minibus in the middle of the desert. Maybe it was reverse psychology, as no one would suspect this old minibus of containing a load of mutants. Or _maybe_ it was the fact that they were in the middle of a wasteland, had not seen another soul and as such did not _need_ a high tech van. Yeah, it was probably that.

Following the first hour driving in the sun, the minibus began to fill with the unmistakable odour of overly hot, sweaty people. To speak for herself, Vriska, not expecting visitors in her basement prison, had only given herself a quick sluice down that morning, forgetting deodorant and now fully reaping the consequences, the dressing gown long since cast beside her. Not that the others were doing much better. She could smell Sollux's reek from where he sat two seats in front of her, and judging by the wrinkling of Aradia's nose as she subtly tried to see if the smell was coming from her, she too was contributing. The guards in their once crisp, white shirts had visible sweat patches under their arms and on their backs.

Loud panting began to fill the bus as the two purple-blooded mutants tried to cool down unsuccessfully; Feferi fanning her face with her hands, and Eridan somehow swishing his facial-fins backwards and forwards to get some cooling air over their surfaces. Much like an elephant flapping its ears in fact. At first, Vriska was merely amused at their antics, yet when Eridan collapsed against the goggled-girl, the situation began to appear direr than first anticipated. She managed a croaky "W-water," before she too collapsed, the guards flicking a glance between themselves.

"Water!" Aradia cried, fairly certain it was 'eau' in English. "Allez! Vite, vite!"

"Watch your language, rust-blood." One of the closer guards snapped, but nevertheless brought a bottle of water over, pouring some into each of the royal's mouths. Once Feferi's eyelids fluttered, the guard pushed the bottle into Aradia's grip before stalking back to the front, flicking back to the page of the book she'd been reading.

Not once looking up from his iPhone, Sollux explained, "Those high-bloodth need more water than the rest of uth. Something to do with their blood." Aradia thought for a moment, translating as much as she could in her head, before nodding slowly. It made sense… well, as much as the hemospectrum did to begin with. The maroon-blooded mutant continued nursing the two high-bloods, allowing them to sip at the water until they were able to hold the bottle up themselves. Eridan graciously tried to get Feferi to drink the most of it, yet she would not hear of it, insisting that he drank equal amounts of it as her.

From the left side of the bus, Vriska watched them. Aradia was certainly holding up the best, followed by Sollux. Neither seemed to want for much water. The olive and teal-blooded guards shared a bottle of liquid between them, although she could not be certain as to what it contained. She herself was getting a little thirsty, although she was not about to admit to this, and how the purple-bloods handled their loss of water was plain to see. Although awake, they appeared weary and dehydrated, in serious need of some TLC.

"Come on Fef, you need it more than me. An' I'm fine aren't I?" he reasoned. True, he was in better condition than her, if only by a fraction.

Feebly, she protested, "No! You're having exactly the same! Stop being so glubbing stupid."

"You know the higher your blood, the more wwater you need. You stop bein' so glubbin' stupid." He mocked her slightly, if only to get her to drink more out of irritation. It was sweet, if not a little backwards in logic, but worked nonetheless. Seemingly not wanting to be known for killing the girl with the highest blood caste worldwide, the guards brought her another bottle, along with the same arguments.

"No, Eridan, you are going to drink as much of this as me this time,"

"I freakin' wwell don't need as much a' it as you do!"

"Whale, honestly, I don't want to have this argument again. Just drink it!" Feferi harrumphed when Eridan refused once more.

"Wait, whale? What the hell have whales got to do with this?" Vriska asked, confused at the sudden appearance of marine mammals in a conversation on who was going to drink more of the water.

"Elle aime les poisons beaucoup." Aradia tried to explain, but was halted by her poor English, then shrugged and attempted anyway. "Euh, she likes the fish related jokes, yes? Is jokes the word?"

The high-blood nodded curtly, "Well, puns. But yes, that's basically it." Then proceeded to ignore Vriska, either because of her insulting of the goggles, or for setting Eridan off into a blind rage. It seemed she had not made any friends yet, and did not intend to.

Leaning forwards over the back of the seat in front, Vriska jabbed Sollux in one shoulder blade and said, "Can't be getting a signal out here, surely."

He turned his head just a little, as if to acknowledge her existence, and then went back to his typing.

"And how are you going to charge it? Pretty useless choice."

"I have my wayth."

"Yeah… well, I'll take your word for it. Just so you don't feel bad about your pathetic choice when it runs out of charge and you're left with a lump of shit," she taunted, but it seemed that Sollux was not so easily enraged. "And what are you even doing anyway?"

"That's none of your busineth." He did not even sound vaguely irritated. Oh, he was good.

Vriska pouted, then when she glimpsed a scroll of text, tried, "Writing fan fiction are we? Or ith that too thilly?"

"My overriding manly scent must be affecting your poor mind if you're thith eager to speak to me." he drawled. He even ignored her mocking of his lisp! Shit. Vriska was out of ideas… for now. '_This is by no means over, Sollux_.' Aradia snorted at the boy's reply, and unbeknownst to Vriska, a small smirk crossed Sollux's face for a split second. He adjusted his weird, dual-coloured glasses before resuming the stream of text flowing from his fingers.

"Bluh." Vriska sat back down in her seat as the bus driver yelled at her to stay in her chair like a good little mutant. She kindly offered him a one-fingered salute in return for his helpful advice.

God. When would this never-ending stream of wilderness and blue-sky stop? For the first quarter of an hour it was interesting, novel even, and since then it had become boring for her. Everything looked like the same stupid bit of land there was a split second ago. Couldn't this van go any faster? They had been driving for what must have been hours! The long summer day still did not want to close and bring lower temperatures, so she was stuck with staring out of the window, which was not exactly the most inspiring thing she had ever done. So. Duuuuuuuull.

Dull dull dully dull dull. Duuuuuuuull dull duuuuuuuuull. Dull dull du- **BANG**!

The crash interrupted her mental reverie and she jolted back into reality. Vriska, eloquent as usual cried, "Holy shit!"

"C'était quoi, ça?" the French girl asked, automatically speaking in her native language.

"Did wwe hit somethin'?"

And with that, the air conditioning switched off to accompany the dying splutters of the engine, before it stopped altogether, leaving a slightly eerie silence in its wake. Sollux looked up, briefly, before deciding it was not as interesting as his iPhone.

"Don't get up!" The female guard who had given the purple-bloods their water commanded the young mutants before heading outside. Something interesting had happened outside, but because of her status, Vriska was not allowed to see… this pissed her off, to put it mildly.

Before the mutation, due to her cerulean coloured blood she was able to get what she wanted a lot of the time. Most of the higher up blood castes did not live in her district, so she had a fairly advantageous position in terms of children willing to do her schoolwork for her, and give her their lunches. She was a blue blood in a sea of lower castes. There was not much they could do against the school bully. Heck, even the headmaster was a mere teal blood, so even she could do little to influence Spidermum and her daughter's terrible behaviour. It was when Vriska met Terezi, however, that she changed, if only a little. Having a friend that refused to put up with her shit was good for her, and she was beginning to change her actions. She had even met a nice guy on holiday, some geek called John, but the email address she gave him was never followed through, never contacted. This had happened just before the 'locked down in a basement' incident, and all the progress Terezi had made on her was removed in favour of bitter anger at this John Egbert. What a douche.

So it was because of this that she unbelted her seatbelt and strode down the centre aisle of the minibus towards the door, fully expecting that if she threw her weight around enough they would let her have her way. Of course, all this did was earn her the ceramic pair of handcuffs back onto her wrists and ankles.

"You kind a' asked for that really, Wriska." Eridan mused from the row of seats beside her, looking teeth-grindingly smug.

"Haven't you got anywhere better to shove that steaming pile of bullshit? And could you at least _try_ to say my name right?" The scarf-clad mutant narrowed his eyes. Vriska knew full well that she could not defend herself well all tied up, but it was irresistible. "Come on, lets say it together. Vuh rihs kah. Now add them up, and we get Vriska! Can you do that fish-boy?"

Before he had a chance to injure her, Feferi grabbed a chunk of his scarf and held him back, muttering in his ear, "When you respond, it makes you just as bad as her." A grumpy Feferi was the last thing he wanted, so he remained in his seat, having to do with sending her dirty looks every now and again. "Excuse me?"

A younger guard poked his head up at the mutant's call before walking over. Perhaps he was a fan of hers? "Yes?"

"I was wondering… could you maybe tell us what just happened? Did we hit something?"

"Oh, we hit a wild dog, and this pile of sh- uh, minibus is so old it'll take any excuse to break down."

"But don't you have those high-tech vans for transport?" the purple-blooded girl enquired. Now she had spotted a kink in the 'no-info' armour, she was going to ask questions, small ones at first, and then gradually more helpful ones. "Like the ones we rode in to get to the aeroplane?"

"They wouldn't really fit you all in…" Realising what she was doing, he closed up. "We should be experiencing a delay of no more than half an hour. Someone is fixing the engines as we speak."

"Thank you!" Feferi fixed a sugary-sweet smile upon him, making his face turn a slightly green colour with the blood rushing to his cheeks.

Sure enough, quarter of an hour later, the air-conditioning switched back on, and they resumed their journey another few minutes after that.

The first signs they saw of their new home was a distant white glint as the sun reflected off glass. The closer they get, the better they could see it. After seven minutes, Aradia, for she had the best vision of the five of them, saw a cluster of modern glass buildings, all looking a bright blue, nearly blending into the environment surrounding them. Another half hour, and they arrived at the extensive electric fencing surrounding the compound. Vriska, upon seeing a flash of green fabric on part of the fence, announced to the group that she had seen a half-eaten body, seared by the electricity while they were trying to escape and was now in the process of being picked apart by vultures.

"Yeah, because wwe're going to buy that."

"But it's true! You're just too much of a scaredy-cat to believe it. Wuss-puss."

"Are you seriously likenin' me to a cat?"

The cuffs on Vriska's feet were removed, but those on her hands left on just in case she tried to escape once more or stick her nose where it was not wanted.

"Don't bother trying to run off kiddies. You saw how isolated we are here. There's no _where_ to run to, and no _one_ to run to, so you may as well stay here where you'll get food and water." the guard aimed the last part of the sentence at the purple-bloods, this one seemingly not intimidated by their caste in the slightest. "Make an orderly file the best you can, and we'll get moving."

Like a wall, the heat of the New Mexican wilderness slammed into Vriska, and instantly she could feel little beads of sweat beginning to form on the tip of her nose. If she was not this particularly unattractive shade of grey, she would have thought 'Great, I can get a killer tan from all this sunlight'. Then remembering the remaining bands of normal skin on her arms, shuffled the dressing gown she held slightly in order to catch as much sun as possible. Ugh, this heat was getting intolerable. Ah well, she would simply have to learn to cope.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** WOW. Never before have I gotten such a positive response to a fiction! So many favs and followings in one day! Well, you inspired me to sit and write away all my free time the past two days, so here is your reward!

Right, these characters were hard, I'm not going to lie. Well, I knew Vriska was going to be a hard protagonist to begin with, since we've got near opposite personalities, but the others wre hard as well! Anyway, sorry for the French. As my little French cousin will gladly tell you, I'm not amazing at the language! But hopefully I got the points across. I've always imagined Aradia as French for some reason, even though she's an alien… meh.

Anyway, next chapter we should be seeing the rest of the trolls, as far as I've planned. Definitely some Tavros anyway. That is fo' sho'.

Thanks for reading! ^^


	3. What a bunch of lame

A certain dusty look clung to all of the buildings, not to mention the air. With each gulp of air it felt like she was inhaling a mixture of fine dirt and water, but the one good point was that the sun had begun to sink back down below the distant mountains, taking the heat of the day with it. What residents there were already were shuffling back to their dorms as far as she could gather, the time around nine 'o' clock at night. Most kept their heads down, looking broken and completely subdued. Vriska saw this as a personal challenge against her attitude, and was about to comment on this when she remembered the handcuffs. Right. It was probably best not to irritate her handlers any more today. Even Vriska had limits… sometimes…

"We've gotten over twenty new mutants recently, all budding, all around your age. But we do not have room for so many. So eventually you will be separated into groups of twelve, separated again to two groups of six, and then into threes. You will stay in these groups of six for sleeping arrangements, the quarter groups for most of the day, and meet all together for eating. We will split you into your groups of three once you are all collected together," one of the guards said, shading his eyes with a hand. "Judging by that dust cloud in the distance, the final members of the thirty will be arriving shortly."

"Should we wait for them, sir?" another guard asked him, clearly a subordinate despite the obvious difference in blood caste. A blue blood taking orders from a green? It was as if they had been transported to the beginning of the twenty first century.

"Yeah, may as well."

So they stood in the sun for another five minutes until the dust cloud reached them… not to mention the bus. Vriska could not have cared less who else was in her team… unless they were potential materiel for manipulation. But by the looks of it -through the dirty bus windows that is- none screamed out at her. They were simply more of the same grey-skinned and scared looking teenagers… although with these, it seemed that not all were completely grey. Unlike with Vriska, and her companions, these children had not been hidden away and allowed to turn completely grey before being removed. As soon as they had begun to turn, they were given in, suggesting fear at the mutation that was greater than the love and care of their guardians.

Like the minibus Vriska and the others came in on, this vehicle was filthy, old and practically falling apart. The door creaked open, and the four walked off the bus. First off was a smallish boy with messy dark hair and a scowl deep enough to make all those who looked on him wonder if they had done something to personally offend him; his skin almost completely grey, save for thick bands on his face. He was shortly followed by an incredibly lax looking young man who stared about him as if the world had done him a favour bringing him here, in stark contrast to the boy before. Like Vriska, the Australian too donned only pyjamas, although unfortunately for him, or perhaps fortunately in this sun, he wore only the bottoms, showing the world the splotches of tanned skin left on his torso, and making the girl exiting behind him blush a soft jade-green. This girl, a Russian, wore her hair in a fashionably short style, sticking up in elegant twists. Other than her blushing, there was a very mature, grown-up sense to her by the way she carried herself, and, as Vriska would later find out, spoke. The final member off the bus, a Hispanic boy, had thin, near delicate features, with tufty hair and shy eyes that never held contact with others for more than two seconds at most. Unlike the others, his skin was almost completely normal still, showing a deep, mostly uninterrupted tan. This also meant that the raised lumps seen on most of the others heads were barely visible on his. Vriska chuckled. He was in for a lot of shit the coming months.

Equally sweaty and reeking of 'I need a bath', the Hispanic and Russian mutants both had the decency to look a little sheepish. The other two apparently did not care either way, although with only his trouser bottoms on, the Australian may well have been cool enough. Wringing the top of a bag with, what she assumed to be his item inside, the shy-boy looked around him with fear in his eyes. Clearly the place, and separation from his family, had terrified him. Aradia noticed this immediately, and lay a comforting hand on his arm, making him a flinch a little.

"Do not worry. It will be all okay… wait, it will all be okay. Sorry," she smiled, realising that her English had been grammatically incorrect.

"Thanks."

"My name is Aradia. Et toi?"

"I'm Tavros."

"Ah! I see you are rust-blood as well. Et bien, we will have to, euh, look out for each other, yes?"

"Sure. But, uh, no… never mind." he began, and then changed his mind about what he was about to say. His voice had a hesitant sense to it, as if he was scared that what he would say would earn him a cuff to the back of the head.

From behind her, Eridan demanded, "Wwell, are we goin' to go in or not?" Yet she was unsure as to whom he was asking this to. If he was following Vriska's shining example at trying to order around the guards, he would soon end up as poorly as she did no doubt.

They were told to get into pairs to walk in, and Vriska found herself with Sollux, oddly enough without the iPhone obscuring his vision. Apparently, this situation was important enough to warrant it's putting away. No small talk was attempted, they both knew that they were not to get along, and the English mutant was busy taking in the scenery as they were marched towards a large set of doors. Lucky to be with someone she knew, Feferi chattered nervously to her purple-blooded friend, one hand resting cautiously on the crook of his arm for comfort, the other fiddling with the sides of her goggles. Far in front, the tall Russian strode next to head guard, asking only questions that he could answer, since most topics were restricted. There were currently nine in their group now, and so there were going to be three more mutants waiting on the inside for them, not counting the twenty or so they had seen outside, soaking the sun up like it was their last chance.

Inside, the buildings had the same modern, near-futuristic look to them. Fake-wood laminate lined the floors, with the walls a warm off-white, which gave the sense that whomever ran this was trying to make it seem homely. The rather disturbing paintings by Geiger distracted from this feeling, however, and left even Vriska a little shell-shocked. He really was not the best artist to have in a detention centre for mutants, it merely served to drive home the fact that they were oddities amongst humans. Still though, they could look like the strange creatures in his artwork, so it could be a lot worse. Vriska noted the fact that Tavros, the tufted-haired kid, did not like to look at the paintings. She would have to find a way to use that against him some time, although she should get all the amusement she wanted from Eridan alone… provided Feferi did not step in again.

The first room they entered was where they were to get their items from home checked. Even after the analysis by the doctors before sending, some children had evidently been known to smuggle in 'dangerous' items, and so they had to be scanned just in case. The centre was not there to kill the mutants; it was there to detain them, and no more, unless they were a danger to both others and themselves… at least that's what their parents had been told at any rate.

"I need you all to remain in line, and bring the item you brought with you to the member of staff on your side. They will pass it through a scanner to check for any unexpected items. Before anyone complains, this is for your own safety. We had a member, before we checked, that brought in a knife, and killed four people, three of these mutants."

First up was the Russian girl, who had a picture book, which Vriska assumed was her favourite as a child. Still, it was an odd thing to bring. At first, the procedure went fine… But, oh, something was wrong. The guard on her side began patting her body down, and wore a strongly disappointed look as they found various sewing materials on her. Spools of thread concealed in pockets and the needle disguised on the inside of a hairgrip. From where she was stood, she could just about pick up 'Couldn't pick just one, huh, sister?' from the Australian. She looked pretty embarrassed with herself, and shuffled off after the woman who patted her down, presumably for a full body search. Never before had Vriska been so temped to yell 'BOMB!' and screw everything up, watching the panic ensue. The chaos would be akin to that which would occur if the same word was said in an airport. Well… maybe not _that_ bad. But fun enough anyway.

Next were the polar opposites. The laid back Aussie, and the constantly irritated Californian, of which neither brought an item, it seemed. Odd. Then, by an even odder turn of events, preceded by much muttering, the Australian announced, "Wait, the book's mine. I was kinda embarrassed about it, so she offered to take it in for me. Fucking miracle that it got this far, I expected it would fall apart."

"Hmm. You're the one with the weird dietary requirements, aren't you?" the guard asked, which was replied to with a casual nod. His eyes narrowed, probably working it out through his head and wondering if what the mutant had said was true. Well, as far as he could tell he was making it up to save the Russian's ass, but it was not going to harm anyone. "Whatever, bring the girl back in."

Wearing just a large square of fabric, she walked back in, looking visibly shaken. The sewing kit was placed into her hand, and the picture book, a Dr Seuss by the looks of it, was given to the overly lax boy. She looked like she was about to protest, the book must have meant a lot, but was silenced by a sly wink. "I've got this, sister." In all fairness, he was handling it like an ancient artefact. It seemed to be in good hands.

"Might I maybe acquire some clothes once more?" the jade-blooded mutant asked, slowly, clearly, as if worried that her accent would get in the way of peoples understanding of her. "Because not only is it immensely humiliating to be seen in such inadequate clothing, but despite the warm temperatures outside, it is chilly in here."

"The next room is where you will be receiving your uniform, so there's little point." head-guard dismissed casually. The Russian flushed an angry green, but there was little she could do.

Once the guards were distracted with the next pair, Feferi's goggles and Eridan's immense scarf, she turned to the Australian, this being the first chance she had to speak to him; the mutants had not been allowed to talk to the others on either the plane nor bus. "Although I doubt they believe your little ruse, thank you. You saved me from further… searching," Her face turned a shade greener… somehow. "I am Kanaya. I would shake your hand, however, both of mine are needed to remain somewhat modest," She looked down at herself, and then added, "Well, as modest as one can be in only a sheet."

"I'm Gamzee." he smiled, although by the looks of it, he did little else.

"Well, Mr Gamzee. As I'm sure you are aware of, that book is precious to me. Please look after it with much care."

When it came to the pair before Vriska and Sollux, a certain Aradia and Tavros, she was eager to see what they had brought with them. The French girl had brought a illustrated guide to archaeology, another childhood book, and the shy-boy, after being ordered to remove it from the bag, revealed a sweet cuddly toy of what appeared to be a large headed bull with fairy wings of all things. After a loud snort of laughter from Vriska amongst others, he flushed a deep orange-brown colour and pushed it back into the bag immediately.

"Ignore them." Aradia muttered to him as it was passed through the scanner. It came out clear, and he went to stand by Kanaya and Gamzee, waiting for Aradia to be done.

Gamzee turned to the crabby boy, Karkat, and asked, "Hey, why didn't you have an item, bro? I actually had one, but left it on the plane."

"Well, I _did_ have an item, but they took it off because of some-" the irritated boy began, holding true to his facial expression before the Australian covered his mouth with a hand, only contributing to the crabbiness.

With a slow smile, he said, "I didn't ask for a motherfucking shit storm."

His smile became a little sheepish when one of the guards gave him a look that clearly indicated, 'Clean up your disgusting language.'

Sollux's iPhone was passed under a scanner that scrambled up its use as a communication device. Obviously, they could not have their inmates communicating with the outside world. It simply would not do. But Vriska had a sneaking suspicion that Sollux was hiding something. Finally, it was her turn, yet something was amiss, as the person checking her dice could not decide if a set counted as one item, or multiple ones. The guard stood for a while, pondering the fact, before she began to shake her head.

"I think you'll only be able to take one. It'll be easier to carry at any rate." But just as she was about to take the other seven dice, Vriska looked her directly in the eye and concentrated, something in her mind was telling her to. It was the oddest sensation.

"I think that you'll find I'm allowed all of these. You cannot simply have one dice, you need a set. Like you can't just have one tooth." Vriska spoke slow and clear, similar to Kanaya's pattern of speech, except without the accent.

"Hmm… I don't know…"

Vriska focused even harder, softly commanding, "Yes. You do know, and the answer is yes."

"Oh… okay. And can I check your glasses briefly? I just need to check that they are prescription." Not wanting to cause too much suspicion at what she had just done, and in a partial state of shock that it had actually somehow _worked_, she slid her glasses off and passed them to guard.

She had once been self-conscious about the massive glasses, and still was to a degree, yet after she had come home crying to Spidermum for what seemed to be the fourth time that week, she decided to take matters into her own hands and taught her daughter some life-lessons. Next time Vriska was teased at school, it was the bullies who went home crying.

Without the glasses, Vriska could see near nothing, and the glasses had to be placed directly in her hand before she could find them without resorting to random groping of the area in front. It was mainly the disgust at having to rely so much on them that brought about her dislike of the glasses, especially now that she was here. If she lost them, then she may as well be blind, and could become an easy target for the others. That was not going to happen. She could not, _would_not become the bullied little six year old once more. Others would have gone about befriending as many as they could, forming a gang of sorts for protection. For Vriska, such an option did not even cross her mind for a second. Hers was to become the dominant mutant, the alpha, and make sure that they all knew just how badass she could be, that if they messed with her, bad things would happen.

The group of nine were now all done, and so they moved to the next room where they would be receiving their outfits. They were to strip to their underwear for the measurements and were then given the clothes. For Vriska, who had deemed it unnecessary to wear a bra since she was only thirteen, and as such completely flat chested (not to mention in her pyjamas), she got to keep her t-shirt on. And as for poor Kanaya, she had to wrap the sheet around her like a sort of strapless dress, and be measured that way. Like the mutants they had seen outside, they were given a grey-green overall to wear on top, covered will all manner of useful pockets with long, warm sleeves. Underneath that went a black vest, with a pair of knee-length, fairly snug shorts, and, of course, undies. Boxers for the boys, with pants and a bra for the girls, although none really needed the bra yet except Feferi, who, blushing, took it and went to get changed. It was probably a pre-emptive measure so that they would not have to hand them out later on, which would undoubtedly be more embarrassing. Finally, they each got a pair of knee-high boots made of a thick, synthetic leather.

Once they were all changed, with a last look at her favourite pyjamas and dressing gown, Vriska and the rest of the nine filed into the large lift in the next room. An industrial steel-silver, there were no mirrors inside to give the illusion of space. It was big enough to begin with, although the strange gouges on the walls spoke different stories… there must have been too many in here… with knives…? Oh shit. But maybe that ominous lime-green stain was just paint, right? Because, in all honesty, this lift really did need a change in colour… Okay, so there was something wrong with the scene, it was just that Vriska did not want to admit it to herself.

The guards were slowly being filtered off as they got deeper into the facility, presumably because they had not identified the children as a danger to the head-honcho of guards… or maybe there was less of a danger to the mutants themselves. Admittedly, many people did believe that the best way to deal with the increasing number of grey-skinned mutants would be to simply kill them off, preventing their genes re-entering the gene pool.

With a cheery 'ding!' the elevator stopped, and they filed off in their pairs once more, Vriska fingering the box of dice in her pocket. Since they had begun their decent down into the facility, Sollux was back on his iPhone once more, typing out what looked to be a load of… and then he moved it away from Vriska's sight, preventing her from knowing what it was. Clearly, he was incredibly secretive about whatever he was doing, because he then proceeded to put it away in one of his many zip-up pockets on his side furthest from her.

"Yeth, it ith because I don't trust you." he muttered, pushing his weird glasses up his nose. Well, Vriska decided, at least he was being honest. Although seeing as he had put the phone away whenever they began walking down new areas of the room, he may well have just been saying it to annoy her.

"How did you even get those glasses through? They don't look even remotely prescription." she pestered. The glasses in question were an odd pair of shades, the lens over his left eye: blue, that over his right: red. Where did you even get glasses like that in the first place? In response, he shrugged, not rising to what he assumed to be her bait. In actual fact, she was genuinely curious.

They were greeted by the next three that would join them. A petite Arabic-British girl, Nepeta as she announced excitedly to the larger group, whom was stood next to a tall, muscular boy with a soft Scottish accent, Equius, with much of his pale skin still showing. Vriska guessed that, like Eridan and Feferi, they too were lucky enough to know each other before hand. She then noticed the girl stood next to them, and gave a cry of disbelief.

"What are you doing here, spider-bitch?" The red-glasses clad girl asked, a grin on her face.

"Same to you, shit-for-brains. I was wondering where you were, thought you'd chickened out on all our raids."

"Hehehe, as if! I've been here for almost a week now, waiting for your group to turn up so we can get this thing on the road," Her oriental features were twisted into a sneer as she cast her gaze over the group. "Well… I guess they will have to do. We've still got this guy at any rate," She motioned towards Equius, who was currently looking sweatier than the rest of them combined… somehow. "Apparently he dented the van that they brought him here in. Hope I'm in his group."

"He did! I was in it! It was pretty scary, if I'm honest," Nepeta piped in, her voice containing a Scottish lilt to it as well. "But I knew he wouldn't hit me, so it was fine."

The Scotsman had the guts to look a little embarrassed behind his glasses, but said nothing. Thinking back to the van that she had been taken away in, Vriska remembered that there had been several dents and scrapes on the inside. Perhaps this Equius fellow did them… it was not as if there were vast swathes of mutants like them, so it was possible.

"Now then," the head-guard said once they were all together. "Since you've all been acquainted, we shall split you into the four teams you shall be working in for the next week or so. We have tried to take certain factors into account, but as we know little about you, they may well not be ideal," He sat them down on rows of benches, and stood before them, arms crossed in an intimidating fashion, and yet with sadness hidden deep within his eyes. For most of the children, they did not pick it up, yet for Kanaya and Tavros, the most empathetic of the group, it was more accessible, and it scared them of what was to come next. He called up a list of their names from the computer in the room, which were split into the groups. "There are another six groups before yours. So. Group seven: Equius Zahhak, Aradia Megido and Nepeta Leijon."

Equius, seemingly confused at how there would be no high bloods to boss him around cast an almost dirty look at the low-blood and went to sit. Nepeta greeted her cheerfully, knowing a little French herself, although it was clear that Aradia would have to be using her limited English for the majority of the time with her team. Damn.

"Group eight: Vriska Serket, Sollux Captor and Tavros Nitram." Vriska could barely believe her bad luck! What use would they be in a fight? A boy who still cuddled stuffed toys at night, and a geek? Ugh. They were as good as dead. Luck really owed her a favour.

"Group nine: Karkat Vantas, Terezi Pyrope and Gamzee Makara." A similar reaction came from Terezi who, sighing, realised she would have to in charge of their team. Yet when she voiced this, the grumpy kid, Karkat, created a shit-storm about how he should be the leader because he was 'obviously the best choice' and 'have you even done something like this before ever?' Not as stubborn as this Karkat, or indeed Vriska, she conceded and labelled him as childish both mentally and vocally. Gamzee merely watched on in amusement.

"Group ten, Feferi Peixes, Eridan Ampora and Kanaya Maryam." That was interesting. Clumping the two highest blood with that of the second rarest type… Vriska was a little disappointed. It certainly would have been interesting to be in the team with Eridan, but there would be a high chance that one would beat the other up into a comatose state. They sat in their group towards the back, Kanaya introducing herself to the high-bloods. Feferi excitedly demanded if Gamzee was her boyfriend, due to his taking of her book in what she deemed was a very gentlemanly act. This left Kanaya to awkwardly explain how she tended to be a bit more into the other gender, but not to worry as neither of them were her 'type'.

Now sorted and sitting in their groups, the head-guard closed the files he was reading about each mutant, and turned to face them again. "Are you done talking now?" he said in a sarcastic tone, waiting for them to be silent. "As you may well have noticed when mutants first began to appear, they are not well liked by the majority of the populous. Heck, it took a long time to get even this set up. But because of your… unique needs, we have very little room for your kind, and with increasing numbers of you arriving we have less and less space. We are expanding our base, but not fast enough. There are thirty of you competing for twelve spaces, and we decided that the best way for us to judge who gets them is for us to run a… competition of sorts.

'These groups you are in will be your family of sorts. If one of you goes down in the tests, then you will all fail, so you _must_ look after and look out for each other, or you're as good as dead. We do _not_ want mutants who are willing to betray their companions for our base," He spoke the last sentence slowly, and it seemed to Vriska that his gaze lingered on her as he said it. Well! She would have to show him that his assumptions were (mainly) false by getting group eight through. No matter what. She refused to be disallowed access to survival simply due to her group's inadequacy at self-defence. Besides, if everything else was lame, at least she was in the eighth group. Eight was a good number, so that would at least have to count for something. Continuing with the speech, "You will be released into the part of our base where we test you. It's a large area composed of a sort of… artificial village."

"You have thpace for an entire village down there, but not more thpace to accommodate all of us? That'th a load of bull."

"Listen boy, this was not my choice. So stop being such a smart Alec, and listen," the guard snapped, then taking a moment to compose his emotions into a more neutral state. With the push of a button, a projector in the ceiling switched on and a map of the underground village appeared on the wall behind him, his body becoming part of the screen until he moved away. "This is the layout of the village. There is space for over three thousand residents, to give you an idea of the size, and there are weapons concealed throughout the area for use."

It suddenly hit Eridan what the man was suggesting. "Wwait, so wwe are supposed to _kill_ the others?"

"Yes. That is the idea," the guard sighed, and then continued. "Although there have been groups that have gotten through simply by hiding the entire time. It would be a good idea to have some sort of decision on what weapon you would like to use, yet there is also a good chance that you won't get it. So be prepared to use something that you may have no clue about. My suggestion for getting through this is to find a well-hidden place to hide, stock up on food and wait it out. There are some violent kids on the other team, so be prepared to fight, stock up on long range weapons if needed and take shifts sleeping. Don't light fires, they will be able to see the smoke, and try to get along with your team-mates. Shooting each other will only end in tears.

'This choosing process can take anything from a few days to a few months depending on the budding mutants."

The worry in Tavros's eyes grew as he looked at his team-mates… he was a pathetic fighter, being a pacifist and he knew that they were likely to get fed up of him fairly quickly. Ugh, where was self-confidence when he needed it? Just looking at Vriska, he knew he was in for a long and painful week in the village… if they even lasted a week that is. Once you become the bullied, one gets an inbuilt radar of sorts for spotting bullies, and his radar was near short circuiting around this girl. Remembering the advice he had been told countless times 'If you don't give the bullies a reaction, they'll get bored and leave you alone' It was easier said than done, but probably necessary with his current group.

"You will now be separated into different rooms as to discuss your tactics. You will have ten minutes and will then be moved into the village." Before they were moved, Sollux turned just in time to catch a small, sad smile on Aradia's face. When she noticed him, she made it look a little braver, which he returned with his own goofy grin before he even realised it. Damn, what even was that?

The rooms they were separated into were plain with white walls and a plastic floor. Three chairs sat innocently inside, forming a loose circle, which they obviously had to adhere to. The three members of group eight sat in this circle, none bothering to rebel and move the chairs; they were too shell shocked for that. Despite Vriska putting up this big show and dance about being a huge bitch, it was all a barrier to protect her from the bullying again. In reality, she hadn't a clue at how to fire a gun, or stab someone. What thirteen year old does? Sollux was in only a slightly better state. His father, a vast man with a personality that changed at the flip of a coin, was prone to coming home very aggressive after drinking, not to mention his friends, so the boy was used to holing up in his room and waiting out the anger. Sometimes having to fight back even before he could hide. As for Tavros, he had very little experience of such violence. His parents had adored their son, slathering him with approval and love from the start. In any other scenario, it would have been great, save for the bullying he received at school for being a 'dirty foreigner immigrant' that was 'stealing all their jobs' due to his Latin American ancestry. Ironic really that both his parents were born in the US, not to mention himself. Although, it was not as if these bullies were logical.

"You do realithe that thith ith just to get rid of all the weak oneth of uth?" Sollux commented suddenly, making the other two mutants in the room jump.

Confused, Tavros asked, "What do you, uh, mean?"

"He means that they're killing off all of us that are weak or are disloyal. That's the point of the whole 'don't kill the people in your team'. It's not exactly a new thing, having fight each other for that," Vriska found her voice again, and fully utilised it. "Hey! Maybe they're making a sort of post-apocalypse army of mutants!" Now she had gotten started of one of her favourite topics, an odd excitement found its way into her voice, making her seem younger, less bitchy. "And imagine if we start developing super powers or something, and then they start hybridising us into some kind of super weapon for the US to wage war on all the other countries! It's not like relations have been very good recently…" She then realised the other two members of her team were looking at her with unconcealed curiosity. Well, it was no surprise really, it wasn't as if she let of a particularly enthusiastic attitude most of the time. She blushed a pale blue. "Well, anyway. Tactics! We need to get started, because frankly, you don't look like fighting material."

"And you do?" Sollux raised an eyebrow at the slight girl in front of him.

"I mean, I'm out of shape now, I was locked in a basement for months," She paused, taking in their curious expressions once more, and then giving them a look that indicated nothing would be said on the matter. "Anyway, what I'm getting at is that I know how to fight. I've taken judo classes for years now."

"Don't act tho superior. Have you ever actually been in a fight with someone older than you? A seriouth fight? Not jutht a controlled one at a club. In real life, they may have a knife, or a gun. They won't play nice." Although his words were serious, his tone did not change much from the usual.

"Well… not much older. But, they were kinda serious."

"And you… you don't look like you could thquash a fly…" he said to Tavros who, indeed, didn't.

"So what you're saying, is that our best hopes of survival is to hide and wait it out?"

"Yeth."

"Then that's what we'll do. If we pick a house, fairly near by where we're dropped, not too far away, because that's where they'll be looking, and not too close… for obvious reasons. It shouldn't be two stories if possible, otherwise if we get trapped upstairs we may have to jump from a window or something stupid."

Sollux nodded, "Tho if we do, we'll have to find one with a roof or thomething near by. Something we could thlide down for part of the way."

Sitting and listening was really all that Tavros could do. He hadn't a clue about such tactics, having never really thought about these things before, so could contribute nothing. He had never needed to sneak out of his house, of hide from his parents, or worry that the druggies downstairs could turn nasty and kill him in his sleep just for fun.

"We couldn't cook the food, as the smell of it could attract people. Same goes for anything smelly… unless… oh gross," Vriska wrinkled her nose in distaste at the idea that just crossed her mind. "We could possibly ward them off by having loads of disgusting smells in the general area where we are."

"Yeah, but if thith ith an artificial village, then there won't be loadth of rubbish around or open sewage or anything. If anything, bad smellth would be suspiciouth."

"Shit."

"No. That'th exactly what we won't be doing."

"Oh very funny, Thollux," she mimicked, throwing an incredibly sarcastic smile at him, which he ignored. "Hey, Tavros. Got anything to say, or are you just going to sit there like a lemon for a bit longer?"

"Uh, sit like a lemon, I guess," he replied. "I'm not going to, uh, be much help here.

"Oh, don't worry about it. We could tell." Vriska smiled viscously, and carried on talking to Sollux. "Our main problem is gonna be escape routes and weapons. If we find a kitchen with a good stock of knives, then that should do us. As for escape… a garden with a fence would be better, since we can't hurdle over a hedge really."

"And what if one of uth getth injured? We won't be able to hurdle over it then."

"We'll have to pass them over to someone on the other side then, I guess. But we'll think about that _if_ it happens. Which, by the way, it won't."

Sollux shrugged, "All I'm thaying ith that we should be prepared for the worst."

"Of course," she nodded. "And obviously, if possible we should get loads of tinned food. Especially stuff that isn't gross."

"Hey, wasn't there, uh, someone with a special diet?" Tavros said all of a sudden. "Because I've heard that there are some, uh, indigo-blooded people who have to eat special diets, because otherwise they go on some kind of, um, killing spree…"

They stared at the orange-blood for a few seconds, concerned at what he had just said. Neither had heard of such a thing before, so it would not be put high up their concern list, but even so…

"Where did you hear thith?"

"J-just, uhh, rumours I heard," He shrunk back into his chair a little, grinning nervously as usual and stuttering at the sudden attention of his group. "I mean, uh, they may not be true. Uh, just thought I'd throw it out there."

The other two members of his group paused for a few seconds, thinking. The decided that since there was a good chance that what he'd heard on the grape vine could well be false, there would be little use in taking it into their calculations. While they continued speaking, he focused his attention on one of the grey splotches on his arm, which had been spreading at a fairly alarming rate. Although it was good to be surrounded by others with not only the same condition, but were also further along with it. Save for the bands on Vriska's arms, which he glimpsed while she was being measured (at this thought pattern, he blushed), neither of the other members of group eight had any of their original skin colour. Well, at least he would not die like his next door neighbour had suggested while jeering. He clutched the stuffed toy's bag tighter, hoping it would ease the homesickness he was feeling. It did, if only marginally.

"That's ten minutes up. Come back in," the head-guard announced from an unseen speaker inside the room. The mutant children filed into the main room once more, now looking slightly weary of one another after their plots. There was a good chance that many had created specific plans to take out the other members… or rather the more bloodthirsty of them. Others, like Feferi, were horrified by the very thought that they would have to harm their friends, and Kanaya was concerned that if she took out Gamzee, she may well lose her favourite book…

They were each given a small rucksack to put their items in. "You will be lowered into the village, and from there, will have ten minutes to hide or find weapons and food. If anyone kills another in this time, then they themselves will automatically be disqualified, and they and their team, killed. A little rough handling to get the best resources is almost recommended though." A small grin lit his face. "Well, I haven't got much more to say on the matter. Good luck."

Vriska gave a bitter laugh at his comment. Luck was something she had not had in a while. They were moved into another lift, fell for a few seconds as it sped downwards, then arrived. It opened out into the middle of a rural southern USA village, then once they were all out, the lift ascended upwards, leaving no way for them to escape. Also in this square, were the rest of the budding mutants, many still without much grey on them, and others, like Sollux, completely grey.

"The ten minutes to hide and find weapons begins in five…"

One of the other mutants glowered at Vriska.

"Four…"

Tavros tied the drawstrings of his plushie bag securely shut, before putting it inside his rucksack, and throwing it on.

"Three…"

Sollux patted the pocket with his iPhone in, checking it was secure and still there.

"Two…"

Although he would later deny it, Eridan reached for Feferi's hand, grasping it tightly.

"One…"

Kanaya's eyes flickered upwards for a split second.

"Go."

* * *

><p>Your name is Tavros Nitram.<p>

You are known to be heavily arrested by FAIRY TALES AND FANTASY STORIES. You also have a love for the MANY CREATURES OF EARTH. They are all your friends as well as warriors, except not warriors in real life.

You also enjoy playing a variety of CARD AND ROLE PLAYING GAMES. You like to engage in the noble practice of SLAM POETRY, possibly the freshest art form in your local area… okay, not really. You have a profound fascination with the concept of FLIGHT, and all lore surrounding the topic. You believe in FAIRIES, even though they AREN'T REAL.

You noticed a spot of GREY on your arm a while ago, which you tried to conceal with LONG SLEEVES. But wearing long sleeves in SUMMER led people to believe you had been CUTTING, and so your FREAKISH GREY SKIN was discovered. You were then FORCEFULLY REMOVED from your home.

Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** _OH the foreshadowing_! So much foreshadowing… so much…

Also, all this Tavros teasing is hurting my soul. He's my favourite troll, so it's hard man. So hard. Anyway, we've got ourselves some action in store next chapter, which I just realised is very Hunger Games like… poop. Ah well, whatever. We'll just have to deal with it.

And, wow, I'm a super weird person in regards to the 'F' word, I veeeery rarely say it, and dislike writing it down. So basically, what I'm trying to say is that Gamzee is not going to be fun for me to write :I

And again, thank you so much for the support for this! And thanks for reading! ^^


	4. Nice jousting dagger

Suddenly, the mutants were dunked into madness. Everywhere around Vriska flickered grey skin, green jumpsuits, flashes of angry yellow eyes. People pushed and shoved past each other, trying to knock their opponents out before they could find their planned hiding place, or take the weapon they wanted. One such group began to charge towards Group Eight, which Vriska put a stop to by punching the leader in the nose, then chopping the side of her hand at his neck, Sollux taking out the two on either side, protecting their weaker team-mate. Around the square were the weapons, either lying innocently on the floor, or stuck into the ground. Beyond that were the different streets with their houses, where a good deal of the mutants were already heading towards. Fools. There would be no food or weapons there, only shelter. Without an ounce of pity, Vriska thought, '_May as well have a freaking shoot me sign on their foreheads_.'

The blue-blood quickly cast her eyes over the area, and then, they began to run, Tavros finding his hand enclosed in Vriska's rough, albeit warm, palm. But before he could hope for any friendship from this, Vriska spat, "Don't read into this or expect sloppy make-outs to come or anything. I just don't want to lose you then have you killed, because losing this contest would be shit."

"Oh, uh-" Whatever he was about to say was lost when Vriska suddenly yanked him towards where a large, vicious looking knife sat, embedded a couple of inches into the soil. Before the other child running towards them had the chance, she yanked it from the earth and cut them a lovely new scar on their cheek. As they fell to the ground on account of shock, Tavros reminded, "We're, uh, not supposed to kill them until at least ten minutes in."

"Psh. As if a cut that small could kill them! Although she did look like a weakling," the girl snorted, brandishing the kitchen knife in her right hand, with Tavros now in her left. She now set her sights on the mock-up village shop up a steep hill to their right. "Come on. We need to get food if we don't want to rot after the first day. Unless, of course, you want to fail like the other shit-for-brains who went that way." Not that she really gave them a choice, dragging the timid boy with her wherever she went, and Sollux following. Other mutants began to follow her lead, yet before they got close, she jabbed the knife in their direction, tripping a few of them up when they were not fazed by her empty knife threats. Needless to say, Tavros was glad she was on his side… kind of. For those who looked hard enough, they would realise that Vriska could not actually kill them with the knife, quite aside from the fact that she would be disqualified if she did, she currently did not have it in her to murder.

The cobbled road was awkward to run up, the terrain awkward under their shoes and resulting in each member of Group Eight almost falling many times. As soon as they reached the shop and they were all in, Sollux slightly delayed by a group after Vriska's knife, the blue-blood barricaded the door the best she could. Sollux, seeing that much of the produce was fresh vegetables and meat, said, "Canned or dried food only. Thith could last a while. And I don't want to deal with any tapewormth from uncooked meat."

Each opening their bags, they began shoving all kinds of tinned produce into their bags. A good deal of the tins in Vriska's pack were sweet corn, something which she knew tasted acceptable cold from experience. After a good few of these, she descended upon foods rich in vitamin C, not wanting to get scurvy like the pirates of her stories. A couple of jars of sauerkraut ought to take care of that. Now, what about carbohydrates?

They only stopped when another team, Group Three by the war cry they gave, came down from where they had been hiding upstairs. She doubted they would give such cries when the ten minutes were up… unless they wanted to be shot in their stupid, lame skulls. Instructing the others to carry on, Vriska began to work on them. From their energised cries, they really were fairly dumb. For a start they had thought hiding in the shop with all the food would be a good idea, and did not even think to close the door properly! What idiot would do that? With a couple of well-placed kicks, the first member went down, the fact that they were trapped in a stairwell making beating her all the more tragically easy. She locked eyes with the second member, a fairly large boy with blond hair that had the dark roots showing. He leapt down towards her, his weight knocking her to the ground, causing her to body to smack hard on the carpeted floor. And as if that were not enough, he then kicked her in the mouth, splitting her lip open and making her bite a deep incision into her tongue. She let out a quick gasp of pain, before Tavros dragged her back out of the way, Sollux hitting the boy in the stomach, winding him, then delivering a swift kick to the ribs as he fell to the floor.

As he dealt with the final member of their team, Tavros propped her up against one of the shelves, giving her a once over. "Are you okay?"

Spitting blue down the front of her jumpsuit, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, smudging more of her blood across her face. "Gee, I don't know. Shitty? Why don't you freaking tell me, doctor?" Using her sleeve, she wiped her face down, quickly removing the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. "Freaking shit. Ow. My back hurts…"

"Could be worthe." Sollux commented, now done with the members of Group Three and rubbing part of his arm. The final mutant in Group Three had a mean throwing arm on him, chucking a can of asparagus at Sollux before he delivered the final blow. Piling the unconscious group in the corner, they set to finishing filling their packs. To his dismay, with his cuddly toy in the bag, Tavros could not put as much in his rucksack, so he made sure to pack useful items such as medicines and a torch or two to make up for it. He knew the blue-blooded mutant would not be pleased with this in the slightest, or the yellow-blood probably. He was on the verge of muttering an angry curse at Tinkerbull, but could not bring himself to. When they could only just lift their bags, they decided it was enough, and decided upon leaving the shop through the back door, which led out to a small garden surrounded by tall fences. No sooner had Vriska popped her head out the door, a bullet embedded itself in the wall right next to her ear, accompanied by a lock of her hair dropping softly to the ground.

"_Bitch_!" she yelled before shutting the door firmly and pushing her glasses firmly higher up her face. "Crap. The ten-minute mark must have gone while we were busy with these douchebags." As if to make her point more valid, she kicked the boy who knocked her to the ground.

"Refrain from kicking them when they're down. They're already knocked out, that'th just low."

"Since when did you care about honour and shit?" she scowled, but stopped none the less. "Whatever."

"We're, uh, going to be pretty slow with all this stuff," Tavros said, referring to the food in their bags. "We're going to be easy targets at, uh, at this rate."

"Yeah, well we're gonna have to cope. We can't afford to let any of this go, or we'll die," Vriska snapped. "Anyway, you have the lightest load, thanks to your toy thing, so stop complaining, weakling."

"Vrithka, thut up for a thecond." Sollux muttered, and indeed, she was so confused that someone of a lower caste than her had told her to be quiet, that she was silent long enough to gather what he was doing.

Another side effect of this weirdly systematic mutation, was that the mutants ears would grow, the tip becoming more pointed over time, then lengthening another two, three inches, until giving the impression of… well… furless wallaby ears? Hairless donkey ears? Bluh, it was a hard comparison to find. Vriska and her little sister, before she herself had contracted the mutations (or rather, before the signs had begun to show), found a picture of a mutant, and tried to decide what the weird ears looked most like. It had taken an afternoon and a large encyclopaedia of the world's animals, from before the war of course, as half went extinct during that time, to figure it out. The closest comparison they could find was the ears of an aardvark. Now she herself had a pair of these, she realised they were not exactly alike, but it was the best comparison she could find still. Yet one comparison that was spot on, is that they worked similar to that of a bat's, funnelling the sound around her and enhancing her hearing. As a result, she could just about hear the small scratching noise from the floor above them.

Tavros, who had very few of the typical mutant signs yet, did not have the ears, so remained silent, straining to hear it, and still failing.

"We should try the front door instead." Vriska decided after hearing the weird shuffling, whispering the words as silently as possible. All of the strange Giger art was messing with her mind, making her imagine the creepy monsters in his art as being the source of the noise upstairs. From Sollux's pale face, or as pale as a grey face can get, she guessed that he too was thinking along those lines. Perhaps that was their purpose; to freak out the child-mutants. Tavros went along with their idea, deciding that if what he could not hear was making his team-mates unsettled, then he probably did not want to hear it.

Unblocking the doorway, they snuck out the front way, pleased to find that whomever was shooting at them from the back entrance would not see them this way. Good. But, damn, they really should have found shelter before the ten-minute mark. And more weapons. Sure, the knife was a good tool, but it would be little use in a gunfight. Only the fool brings a knife to a gunfight.

"Shit, what were we doing? How did getting a load of bloody food take ten freaking minutes?" Vriska then closed her eyes as she swore exactly eight times for luck, counting as she went. "Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit."

Then, as they paused by a hedge for shelter, took out her dice and rolled them on the floor. A high score meant high luck; a low score meant low luck. Eight dice, and eight sides. A total of sixty-four.

42.

Damn, now that bloody song from 'A Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' was in her head… stupid dolphins. But forty-two was okay, she guessed. Sixty-five percent luck. Could be better, but could be worse. _'And it could be more worse than more better… so overall, okay luck_.'

Packing them away again, ignoring the curious looks of Sollux and Tavros, she scanned the surrounding area for anything that could be of potential use to them.

"What's this?" From behind her, Tavros found a particularly tiny jousting lance. It had the handle and odd conical shape, but was under half a metre long, striped red and yellow. A jousting _dagger_? Either way, it was not what she had in mind with the sentence 'of potential use to them'.

"That is the most useless device I have ever seen in my thirteen years of existence… almost fourteen coming to think of it." the blue-blood sighed, flicking her hair back away from her face like some mock shampoo advert. But nonetheless, the orange-blooded boy took it with him, ignoring her words. Somewhere above them, they could hear the 'cha-_chick'_ of a shotgun. It was time to move.

The next stage of their journey involved finding shelter. A house, single storey, would be ideal, but, heck, they would settle for a shed right about now. As long as they were no longer in the open, it would be heaven. Skirting along the bottom of hedgerows, they stepped near silently, making sure not to tip-off anyone with sensitive hearing, which was only… pretty much everyone here. There were a few close shaves, including a time where they encountered the vast Equius, who seemed quite happy to pummel them unconscious… or worse. But Aradia, upon seeing Sollux and Tavros lay a hand on his arm, and to their surprise he let them go, muttering something about rust-bloods under his breath as Aradia gave them a small smile. She whispered, "Rust-bloods have to stay together, no?" And then, out of the Scotsman's earshot, added, "Do not worry about him, he is, euh, well… he is not so bad, voila."

They seriously doubted her words, but nevertheless Tavros gave her a grateful smile before they moved on once more.

As they crept onwards, Vriska hissed, "You realise that if we don't fight any teams with people we know in, that it's just gonna leave us with all those freaky psychos to fight?"

"I theriouthly doubt that you could actually kill someone."

"That's besides the point."

"There's, uh, a pretty good chance that they'll all kill each other… that is, if they are as, uh, bloodthirsty as we have been led to believe." Tavros speculated, his trademark nervous grin plastered on his face.

"That'th a good point."

"Yes, but if we just sit on our metaphorical haunches doing nothing, there's a good chance that _everyone_ will do shit all, and this 'contest' bull will go on for ages. We've got enough food with us for about two to three weeks maximum. And that's if we do some serious rationing," she paused, pushing her hair back from her eyes. "I, for one, do not want to die."

"That wath not someone thaying 'I have a death-wish', that wath them saying 'I don't want to become a math murderer'."

"A _math_ murderer?" she teased. "Ha, yeah, I go around murdering _maths_."

"My point remainth valid," Sollux remained as stoic as ever, fixing her with what she imagined was a steady gaze from behind his glasses. "Anyway, I feel we thould perhapth focuth on something other than childish digs at one another. We haven't got time for all thith bull. We need thomewhere to hide before it geth even darker."

Looking towards the artificial sky, it was indeed getting darker. While where was no sun to speak of, whatever it was making light was sinking low on the fake horizon line. The village was a life-sized model of a rural settlement nearby the base… nearby as in over a hundred kilometres away. It meant that there was a similar dry look to everything; the grass, the buildings and the earth for starters. Not that anyone would be stupid enough to run out into the open wilderness seemingly surrounding the village, but if one did, you would find that there is a strange feeling that works its way deep into your bones, and the further one walks into this, the more painful this buzzing gets. That alone killed a mutant in the first ten minutes, along with the rest of Group Six as a result of his fear. Although Group Eight were not to know this.

Having not drunk anything since the milk on the plane, Vriska was thirsty. Thirsty as in 'I would drink the weird vinegar stuff they use to pickle sauerkraut' thirsty. Yet they could not stop, so she would have to wait until they reached a house and hope there was a water supply. The thirst needed to be quenched.

The first house they came across with all but one of their boxes ticked seemed to be perfect. After sneaking in and finding plush carpets, warm rooms and comfortable beds, they were ready to fall asleep there and then… that is until Group Two revealed themselves. Apparently their tactic had been to ambush people as they came in by the dart that buried itself into Sollux's chest. Quick as a flash, Vriska slashed her knife forwards, cutting a deep notch into the bone of one of it's members and then thrusting the end of its handle between the eyes of another, knocking them out. The last member, seeing that she probably needed to attend to her teammates, lest one could well die, backed off, leaving Group Eight to leave the house. The 'unoccupied' box of their tick list was one of the more important points, really, and there was little point taking over their house; they would only come back for it later on.

No sooner than they had left the porch, Sollux suddenly slumped forwards, Vriska catching him just in time. Falling on the hard stone patio could have caused him serious damage, which was exactly what she did not want. The vast amounts of tins he was carrying made it hard to hold him up though.

"What's wrong with him?" Tavros asked while they lay him out on the floor. She felt for his pulse, finding it to be alarmingly low. They then both gave him a scan with their eyes, trying to find the root of his unconsciousness. There were no easily visible signs… then the orange-blood spotted the pink feathers of the dart in Sollux's chest. "Shit."

"What?" Vriska still had not found the cause of Sollux's condition, prompting Tavros to point it out to her. Once seen, she reached forwards, planning to pull it from him, but he soon intercepted her, pushing her arm away.

"Don't move him anymore than, uh, necessary."

"Yeah, but the full dosage may not have gone in yet. I'll try not to jostle him or anything, but if we don't get that out now, we could be in for much worse shit than we already are." After a period of thought, Tavros conceded, but by this point, the dart had already been pulled out, Vriska not waiting for the low-bloods approval.

"Do you, uh, think that the girl in there has the antidote?"

"Hmm. Stay here," she ordered, and stood, rushing back into the house where the last, conscious member of Group Two was standing, putting a dressing on the mutant that Vriska had cut. Using all her will power not to hit her, she instead injected all the venom she could into her next words, "Who shot the dart?"

* * *

><p><strong>== Be the Russian chick,<strong>

You are now Kanaya Maryam.

To Kanaya's delight, she encountered upon a chainsaw on the mad rush Group Ten took to shelt-

**== No, the other Russian girl,**

You are now Feferi Peixes.

An arc of yellow blood spurted through the air as Kanaya swung the chainsaw, the large mutant whom had previously been charging towards them stopping as his hand fell to the ground with a dull thud.

"_The hell, bitch_?" he screamed.

"Now kindly leave." The boy did not need to be told twice and he turned-tail, speeding off while cradling his injured arm, pressing the stump against the fabric of his boiler suit to try and stop the bleeding. So far, it was not doing much.

"I t-think just waving the thing in his face would have scared him off, honestly." Feferi stammered as Kanaya switched the tool off, making a mental note to not irritate the other Russian girl, lest her hands get sawn off.

"As well as given him the opportunity to think we are easily won over," Kanaya paused to think of the correct wording, and then added, "If we do not follow through on our threats, then other teams will begin to imagine that we are pushovers and will kill us. However I apologise that you had to see that."

"Wwell… it wwas necessary. Noww lock the gate. Wwe don't wwant the rest a' their group gettin' in."

Kanaya shot an irritated look at the boy, but nonetheless shut and then locked the large gate. Bloody celebrities. Instantly, it began buzzing as strong currents of electricity passed though it. Not enough to kill someone, but enough to prevent people from trying to scale it without getting some serious pain coursing through their body. The same went for the rolls of barbed wire at the top of the three metre tall walls.

They headed towards the building and picked up their pace, worried that someone could see them and decide to take a shot. Shelter for them was now a triple story mansion on the outskirts. At the very top of the house was an observatory of sorts, made from a large dome of bulletproof glass, with a series of small windows at eye-level. The gardens surrounding it were vast and composed almost entirely of lawns. This was the best house in the village for safety, and they had only found it because of a small package being slipped into the palm of the Russian high-blood. Once their group was put into the separated room, they opened it, finding a small map, a heavy iron key and a thin card key for the gate. It turned out that they could not allow Feferi to come to harm, as well as anyone lucky enough to be on her team.

It was hardly fair, but as long as she and Eridan survived this, heck, she was not about to complain. He was the closest thing to family she had, and had looked out for her since the day that they had found each other. She often reminisced about that day, but right now was not the time; they had work to do.

The first thing they noticed as the door to their temporary home swung open were the stairs. They stretched up one tier, and then branched out left and right, flanked by two rows of rooms for god knows what. At the far end of these twin corridors, they met again, with another staircase reaching up towards the second floor. Finally, in the centre of this floor was a spiral staircase reaching up into the observatory via a trapdoor. Making sure that she locked the door behind her, Feferi soon set her mind on how they could use this. They should be safe enough to simply wander around the house, thanks to the electric fence. But she was not willing to take that risk, not if her adoptive brother and new-found (kind of) friend would be put in harms way because of it.

"Find as much food as possible and take it to the second floor. And Eridan, give me your Arab's Cross-stitch or whatever it's called." she commanded, swapping her double-ended trident for Eridan's oversized gun, then began to head upwards, opposite to the other two going to where they suspected the kitchen to be. At their confused looks, she explained, "I just need to test something."

"But Fef, you hate goin' places on your owwn." Eridan said, concerned.

"Hey, I'm thirteen and a half, almost. It's about time I grew up." she grinned. "Come on grumpy-gills. Get to work!" She took a moment to enjoy Eridan's expression at her pet name for him, and then jogged up the first set of stairs, finding herself out of breath already. She muttered to herself, "Man, I need to do more exercise. Note to self: survive, then go to the gym."

She did not care what her purple-blooded friend said in the contrary, she was chubby and she knew it. Sure, it was not _that_ bad, but bad enough that she understood she needed to exercise more. Although secretly, she hoped his claims of 'Even if you wwere fat, it would be puppy-fat which would only contribute to your height as you groww up.' were true. Hehe, he was far too sweet sometimes… she wondered why no one else noticed. Although that ridiculous gun they found earlier seemed to bring out this new side to him which she had not previously seen.

When she finally reached the second floor, she searched for the stairs to the observatory, and found them in plain sight. Well, that was nice!

Lifting the trapdoor, she hoisted the huge gun under one arm, fired it at the glass dome then let the door slam shut, running back down the spiral staircase to safety. TO her surprise, the only thing destroyed when she went back inside was the amateur telescope. Hmm. That probably would have been useful. But, glub! The dome could not even be destroyed by the most powerful weapon she had seen yet. This would be their base of operations. Yes.

"Fef, wwhat the fuck wwas that noise?" Eridan said, appearing from behind her. Evidently, like most normal people, when he heard the loud noise from upstairs, which was where Feferi had been heading, he rushed upstairs. He was shortly followed by Kanaya, who unlike Eridan, had her backpack filled with food. It seemed that at the noise, Eridan had dropped all and ran upstairs, while sensible Kanaya took the food with her, just in case they needed to hole themselves up somewhere for a week while they came up with a plan.

"Wash your mouth out! I was just testing this dome to see if it was bulletproof." she snapped, irritated at his potty mouth. Ever since he had been introduced to the internet, his language had just been getting fouler and fouler. It was pretty annoying, in Feferi's opinion. They had a duty, as high-bloods, to be elegant and so on. F-ing and blinding all over the place was not the way to go about this.

"Oh… an' wwas it?"

"Whale, look for yourself."

They all clambered into the domed observatory, and from there gazed out across the village. The sun had since set, leaving only a disk of white in the air as the moon took over. Everything took a silvery hue to it, and in the distance Eridan could just about see three people shuffle around in the darkness, two supporting one who could not stand as they tried to find a place to hide. He was suddenly very glad at their house.

"I recommend that we acquire more food and bedding materials, and reside in here for now. Venturing outside only to use the, ah, water closet."

There was certainly enough room inside for the three of them and a decent store of food, so they got to work, collecting food from the downstairs food stores, and bedding from the excessive number of bedrooms. Once that was done, Eridan set up the Ahab's Crosshairs, pointing the muzzle of the gun out one of the windows, aiming it at the vast lawns that made up the front garden.

First, they ate. All three were ravenous, but had to restrict themselves to one tin per day maximum. It was tough, but they would need to keep their food going for as long as possible. Feferi had also taken the liberty of bringing a large vase or two of water upstairs with her, after dunking her head in the water-filled sink. Her face fins felt great afterwards, and she recommended that Eridan did the same.

Eridan took the first watch and, feeling safe, Feferi playfully tweaked his cheek before sinking into a light, dreamless sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>== Be the spider bitch,<strong>

You are now Vriska Serket.

"Who shot it?" Vriska demanded as she rushed into the room with the member of Group Two inside. As soon as they noticed, the girls face paled, and the blue-blood could see that she had been crying.

"Shit! Please, leave us alone! I let you go, didn't I?"

"I said, who shot the fucking dart? Kindly tell me, or I'll have to ask again, and I'm not in the mood for repeating myself."

"What? I don't have a freaking idea!" Yet it was clear from her actions that she did, that she was waiting for the poison to finish killing Sollux so that the group with this insane girl in would just die already. A deep anger began to swell within her, and the strange instinct that had spoken to her when she was getting her die through, came once more.

Throwing her fingers to the sides of her head, Vriska stared the girl in the eyes, her voice containing a sudden lull, "Listen, I don't have time for this. Get me the antidote."

A starstruck look appeared in the eyes of the Group Two girl as she calmly got up and walked to the chest-of-drawers, pausing to pull it open and then took out a fine glass vial. Vriska broke off the control and snatched it from her hand before the girl had the chance to smash it, ensuring the death of Sollux. She still was not sure what this strange control she had over people was, but what she was certain of is that it would come in use. '_Must be as a result of this freakish mutation business_.'

"Oi! Open his mouth!" she called as she ran out, pulling the cork from the bottle as she went.

Confused, Tavros asked, "Why?"

"For sloppy make-outs, obviously," she shot back, sarcasm lacing her words. "No, I've got the cure you idiot."

The tufty-haired boy's mouth opened and closed, fish-like for a few seconds as Vriska sighed and did the job herself. Pulling the limp body up into a sitting position leaning against her, she tilted Sollux's head back and poured the antidote in.

A couple of seconds later, and his heart rate was already picking up. Good. It would not do to lose on the first day.

"Uh, feeling better, Sollux?" Tavros asked when the boy's eyelids fluttered. He made a sort of non-committal grunt before slumping down, his head resting Vriska's lap. "I guess not?"

"Here, take one arm," They each took one of his arms over their shoulder and began to carry him to shelter. "You know, Sollux. I think the way that this generally works is that you make at least a bit of an effort to walk. You know?"

"Thhhh…"

"Ugh. Whatever."

With the night, came sleep, and so many of the groups had only their lookout awake. One person would not do much against a group three strong, so there was far less chance that they would be shot at. After another ten minutes of wandering, and Sollux's weird, delirious mutterings, they found a street that was unoccupied as far as they could tell. All of the houses were at least two stories high, but at that time they were not too fussed about such things. They swung Sollux onto one half of a double bed, pulling the covers up to his chin as he shivered.

"Bitch, you don't know how good you've got it." she muttered, before raising her voice so the tufty-haired kid could hear. "Hey, I'll take first shift, okay? I'll wake you in a couple of hours. Although without a projectile weapon, I'm not sure what I'll actually do."

Tavros nodded, and headed for the bed, avoiding the mounds of tins and jars scattered across the room. It was a bit weird sleeping next to Sollux, but as soon as his head hit the pillow all of that was forgotten, he just about managed, "Uh, goodnight." before he sank off into a deep sleep, joining his yellow-blooded companion. Although externally she rolled her eyes, on the inside, she was touched by his gesture… a little.

When she was certain he was asleep, under her breath, the girl whispered, "…goodnight."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** A wild author appeared! Wild author used 'smother with gratitude'. Wild author fled!

In more serious news, my computer thinks it's from Yorkshire. It told me that 'But 42 was okay' should be 'But 42 _were_ okay'. Okaaaay. But it's done this before. It told me 'It's okay' should be 'It's _a_ okay' as well. Weird thing. Oh, and we're at 60 pages now, yay!

Also, sorry about the misspelling I just realised I did! I put Geiger as in a Geiger counter, rather than Giger as in scary alien artist Giger.

And as always, thank you very much for reading! ^^


	5. Unwanted visitor

The door to the house had been left unlocked, deemed unnecessary by the two conscious members of the group as they heaved their downed friend up the stairs. Moonlight, at such a time of the night, was more than enough to go by for someone with their vision, and so they padded softly up the plush, thick carpet; the colour a deep shade of crimson. At first, the intruder felt a small state of alarm at the slight creaks their ascent was making, but when the light snores coming from their target room did not change, they continued without fear.

As they approached the room, light splats could be heard dripping from their cargo. No, not yet; they needed that liquid for later. They eased the door to the bedroom open, and peered inside, making sure all were sound asleep.

Two were in the double bed, one silent, the other the source of the snoring. Another, stationed on a chair by the window, also slept; oblivious to the intruder he was supposed to be spotting. Stupid boy. He was lucky that the intruder was not on a mission to kill them… yet. Right now, they merely wanted to mess with them a bit. But just to be certain, they paused over the double bed, and kissed both children on the cheek, then over to the chair with the dozing sentry, and pecked their lips on his wet face, pausing a second to enjoy the salty taste. Ah, he shuddered, so he was not asleep. He was pretending so the intruder would go away. Silly boy. They waited for the boy to fall soundly asleep, then moved on. The group should not awaken for a while.

Once in the en-suite, they got to work, hammering as silently as mortally possible, while still going fairly quickly. It was not the matter of the sleeping team in the next room, but rather those of the other mutants who could hear the noise and come. They were the intruders only. No one else would get the privileges of their deaths.

Done. Now, for the finishing touch. They pulled a knife from their pocket and _SLIT_…

_Splatter_.

* * *

><p><strong>== Wake up, Sollux<strong>

Your mind feelth thluggish and weird, you ignore all promptth and remain asleep for another few hourth despite the horrendous nightmareth courthing through your thkull,

**== Seriously, wake up, Sollux**

Urhg, not right now. You desire at leatht five more minuteth of thleep

**== GET UP BOY**

Sunlight streamed softly in through the windows of the bedroom, contrasting sharply with the heavy jabs of pain pulsing through Sollux's head. What had even happened last night? He had felt a sharp pain in chest when they broke into the house… and then felt dizzy… and passed out as they left again. That was it? Sollux frowned, keeping his eyes shut as he tried to remember, but to his avail, nothing more came… other than a blurred image of Vriska's face hovering over his…

Okay, basic information. Where was he? _'In a bed… wow, okay, don't remember that_…' He cracked his eyes open a slit, only intensifying his headache with the light. '_Oh god, why am I even alive_?'

At the stage of tired where nothing is particularly alarming, and the only thing that's important is more goddamn sleep, Sollux turned to his other side, and was greeted with Vriska's sleeping form; eyes closed and lightly breathing.

As strong surges of panic began rising in him, he hissed, "What the-"

"No we didn't sleep together or anything, doofas. We're thirteen, honestly," Vriska muttered, not bothering to open her eyes. It seemed that she had been awake for a while, merely waiting for a good excuse to actually move. Also, perhaps for his reaction at their sleeping arrangements. "You're fully dressed anyways."

"Oh… thath good to know I gueth."

"The Group Two lame-asses shot a poison dart at you, so being a pansy, you passed out," she explained, then to make the story more interesting, with a vicious smile, she lied, "You were frothing at the mouth and thrashing about and everything."

"Uh-huh."

Vriska sat up; throwing the blankets off and then began to search for her jumpsuit, having slept in just her vest and shorts. Her yellow-blooded companion was not so eager to wake, and remained curled up, feeling sorry for himself. It was expected, however, that he would be feeling pretty rough for the next few days, and Vriska had planned that Tavros and her would be taking most of the shifts for now. But as soon as his condition improved, he would have to make up for it with an all-nighter… wait that would probably be a stupid idea actually.

"Oh, you're up. That's good. How, uhh, how are you feeling?" Tavros turned to face them, greeting him with a smile, although there was a weary look to his eyes. The grey had spread a little more, with a patch beginning to form over one eye, making him appear almost like a cow. His eyes were kept politely averted from Vriska's form as she changed, although a light blush spread over his cheeks. Not that she really appreciated this.

"Jeez, man. It'th not like she'th naked or anything," Needless to say, Sollux's words did not exactly help the poor boy's blush to disappear. "But yeah, I'm feeling better thankth."

"When you're done discussing me naked, we will begin to eat. Wouldn't want to interrupt or anything," Vriska said, her usual sarcasm thick in her words. "Anyway, dibs on that tin of peaches. That'll be the best thing I've eaten in a good few months."

"Here." the orange-blood passed her the tin. She snatched it off him, offering no hope of a 'thank you', then as she paused to remove the lid, her face suddenly tightened into an expression of rage.

"Jesus! Stupid bloody idiots!" Despite her earlier claims at making sure they kept as much food as possible, not to mention the whole 'we must be quiet' speeches, she hurled the can at the wall, yelling obscenities as she went.

"Vrithka, for godth sake. Do you want everyone to know where we are?" Sollux hissed, on the verge of clasping his hand over her mouth, or knocking her out or just _something_ to make her silent. "Whath even your problem?"

"We forgot to bring a goddamn tin-opener with us! How are we even going to eat anything?" she whined. "Can't believe I was put in a group with such lame-arses."

"Yeah, it'th kinda your fault too. Don't act tho high and mighty."

"Well you should have reminded me! I'm mortal too."

"Uhh…"

"I'm just going to go, and check the house for intruders, and leave you guys to figure out a way to open these tins, otherwise I'm going to smack something." she muttered, holding her head like it was fit to burst and then grabbed the knife. Tavros then waved the tin-opener he had brought with him in the air, but she had already shut the door on them. They honestly pitied any poor human she would encounter on her round so very, very much.

"Think we thould lock her out and leave her to fend for herthelf." Sollux grinned, and honestly, they both considered it, sniggering at the thought.

"Wait, we too, would be killed if she, uh, gets beaten to a rather messy pulp."

"Thinking of that Equi-whatever guy?" The yellow-blood gave another cheeky smile. "Honethtly, I don't think I'd mind too much if he did beat her up a bit. She deserveth it."

"Well… maybe a _bit_…I, I guess."

Using the tin-opener, they each grabbed a can of whatever was closest, and dug into their breakfast. Okay, so after the first mouthful of cold, tinned pasta, Tavros wished he had looked at what he was eating. Could be worse though; Sollux was eating corned-beef.

"Ugh," Yup, that definitely did not look appeasing in the slightest, vegetarianism aside. "Thith ith disgusting. Why did I even bring it?"

"We were fairly preoccupied with just getting, well, food. I, uh, don't think you're too blame. We were being a little rushed." Tavros gave a fairly un-manly giggle, his voice pitching up high again (oh the joys of your voice breaking!), then looked towards the door. The last thing he wanted was an angry Vriska on his case, because really, who did?

Luckily for him, it was once his comment was finished that the blue-blood burst in, kitchen-knife in hand. Upon witnessing their breakfast, she glowered, snatched up the tin-opener, and marched over to where the can she had previously hurled at the wall lay. Needless to say, their meal was a silent affair after that.

When they were done, Tavros said, "We need to figure out when we're, uh, going to eat."

"How so?" Vriska asked, her bad-temper slightly dampened with the tinned-peaches in her belly.

Her team mates guessed that she was not a morning person. It was correct. But in reality, the reason she had been particularly bitchy that morning, was that the tan bands on her arms were getting even thinner, and with that her final connections to who she once was, back when she was normal. Her eyes had changed, almost all of her skin had changed, she was getting some weird bumps on her head, and her canines had been lengthening, becoming sharper by the day. Just that morning she had bitten a hole right through her lower lip in frustration at the lack of tin-openers, making it bleed all over the front of her jumpsuit; but there was enough of her blood on it already so that neither Sollux nor Tavros noticed. She had left to clean it up in the kitchen sink, but was too proud to admit this. Well, if worst came to worst and it did not heal, she had gotten a great new piercing from it.

"Well, first, we have about fifty something tins, which, uh, is okay I guess. But between three of us, we can't have three a day, because, we'll run out. Quickly."

"Yeah… could you speed up? Your meandering is taking all day." Vriska sighed.

"Maybe, if you, uh, let me finish, it wouldn't take so long," he muttered, then continued, "If we each eat a tin in the morning, as to acquire energy for the daily routines, and then share one at night, that should, uh, make sure we don't use them all up."

It was a reasonable idea, and really, there was nothing wrong with it. Vriska pouted, wanting to poke holes in it, but there was little to do so to, so she conceded, scratching at the lumps on her head as they were being maddeningly itchy at the moment. Sollux merely pondered the matter.

"If thith goes on for a while longer, we may well have to go back to the shop. Won't we?"

"Uh, I guess so."

"We thould probably go back there thoon to get more food."

"Well duh, unless we go out there and actually beat the shit out of people like we're supposed to."

"Get over yourthelf," Sollux snapped, irritable at the early time he had to get up at… not that they really had a clue at the time. At least it was Tavros who was the morning person… he dreaded to think what would occur if it were Vriska. "The motht important thing ith that we thtay strong. If we get too weak, then it'th more likely we will be 'owned' as they thay."

"Do you know what else is important? A freaking long range weapon. You're still recovering, so you can't fight… although it would make you less of a weakling I guess. And Tavros… hah!" she snorted at the thought of Tavros being even remotely threatening. "Yeah, he's not going to be protecting us in our sleep anytime soon. So I'm going to be defending you both, pretty much; and I can't exactly throw a kitchen knife at intruders can I?"

"Well you _could_," the geek pointed out, less interested in the conversation now, and back on the iPhone. Man, had he missed it. Away from it for one day, and it was already too long. "Tho. Are we just going to thit here until dark or thomething?"

"Sorry, but, uh, can I just ask. Did you say 'sit here until dark' or 'shit here until dark'? Because, uh, well, I can't really tell," Tavros tripped over his words so many times in an attempt to get the correct wording that Sollux spared him a grilling, and simply gave him a 'what do you think?' look. "Sitting, then, I guess."

They sat in a semi-comfortable silence for a while longer, Sollux typing, Tavros fiddling with a hangnail, and Vriska playing some weird game with her dice. After a couple of minutes of this, she sat up suddenly. "I'm going to the loo.

"Thankth for that mental image."

"You're welcome." she said, picking her knife up as she rose and left the room. The bathroom was an en-suite at the back of the master bedroom they were in, which was pretty convenient. Still making a face at Sollux, she slunk in and shut the door, before turning and facing what lay inside.

They sat in silence until Sollux asked, "Hey, Tavroth, how long ago did you thtart going grey?" At first the boy thought Sollux was referring to his hair and confused, raised a hand to his hairline. "No, I meant your thkin."

"Oh! Uh, several weeks ago I think, or, uh, maybe a few months or so. Sometime in August?"

"You've got a while to go then."

"Until what?"

Sollux merely tapped the side of his nose with a maddening grin that reeked of 'you'll find out'.

Casting a worried look towards the bathroom, Tavros said, "She's been in there a while."

"Not really."

Well, no, she had not. But that was merely a precursor to what he was about to say; on the strange noises he could hear coming from it. "And I can hear something… it sounds like she's crying."

The yellow-blood had his headphones in to block any noise coming from the bathroom; hell if he wanted to hear her on the loo. But upon taking them out, he could indeed hear her hitched breath ringing into the room.

"I dunno, maybe she'th just thtarted her periodth or thomething." he dismissed, making Tavros's nose crinkle at distaste.

"I think, maybe we should go and-"

"Come." Vriska's voice whispered, heard only by Sollux. "Come here. Come in now."

"Hmm?" Sollux called, "Why?"

"I did not say 'please grace me with your loquacious presence if you so wish', I said 'come'. Which means precisely that. So get your butts off the floor, and_come_." Her voice was stronger as the familiar irritation at her companions filled her veins.

Sighing, the yellow-blood heaved himself up from the floor, joined by Tavros, and walked over to the bathroom.

"Tho why do you want us? Only girlth like going to the bathroom at the thame time." They still had not gone in, respecting her privacy as the only girl.

"Shut up, get in here and look, lame-skull." They slowly opened the door and swung it wide open. Immediately Tavros's eyes went wide, traumatised by the sight of the blood. Vriska was pressed up against the wall next to the door, looking like a particularly terrified deer caught in headlights. The white, tiled floor of the bathoom was lined with a coating of vivid, red blood, pools of where it was particularly thick here and there, with strange, mutilated animals hanging from the ceiling; throats slit and strung up by the ankle. The strangest thing by far though, was the mark on the mirror: a ';) xx' drawn in blood.

Sollux's eyes widened behind his glasses… not that anyone could tell. "Thit." And this time, he did not mean 'sit'.

"You don't fucking say?" Vriska laughed, the terror inside leaking into her tone without realising it. Her breaths were irregular, strongly hitched and shallow as she tried to regain a hold over herself. She swallowed several times, although this did little help.

"A mutant. The animalth alone couldn't make thith much blood. But… we would have noticed them coming in. Thomeone wath awake the entire time... weren't they?"

Vriska then turned to the orange-blood, a strange combination of fear and anger on her face. "You fell asleep didn't you?"

"N-no! Well, I uh, didn't mean to… they, uhh, came in and-"

"You fell asleep while they were_ in the freaking room_?" she was on the verge of screaming at him, the event having really scared her. "_I can't _believe_ you! How could you let this kind of shit happen_?"

"I-I tried to, uhh, stay awake but, um, they, well, did something to, uhh, us. I d-don't know!" The poor boy was on the verge of tears from fear at the scene before him and Vriska's anger. When the first orange-brown tinted tears began to drop, the girl grabbed him by the front of his overall and slapped him around each side of the face viciously with no signs of letting up.

"_We could have fucking died, shit-brain! All because you decided to take a nap on the freaking job_!" she shrieked. By this point, they were both in tears, the stress and terror getting to them both… not to mention the pain of slapping. _"How could you do that to us, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, IDIOT, IDIOT_!"

"Vrithka! Thtop it!" Sollux tried unsuccessfully to wrestle the girl off of Tavros, but unfortunately, Vriska really was as strong as she said… which was stronger than Sollux with his wiry, thin muscles, even without the poison he had just been cured of. Eventually he pried her off, stood in-between a pair of hysterical teenagers, one hell-bent of slapping the other into a stupor. Tavros gave the geek a hesitant smile as thanks, although it was not very good given the amount of assault his face had just received. But Sollux ignored it, sending him a disgusted look that clearly indicated he was not in much of a better mood with him.

"B-but, uhh, I couldn't help it-"

"Thave it for thomeone who giveth a fuck, Tavros."

Vriska picked her glasses up from the floor (they had fallen off in the scuffle), placed them upon the bridge of her nose once more, and marched out of the room, shortly followed by Sollux, leaving Tavros alone with the death and the blood…

* * *

><p><strong>== Gee, this is depressing… be the perky one<strong>

You are now Nepeta Leijon.

Currently, she was curled up tightly, asleep on the floor. She had fallen asleep there while fiddling with the stitching on her hat – the item from home she had brought with her – and Equius had left her there, pulling a blanket over her sleeping form.

Yawning, she woke, showing off her lion-esque canines, then stretched, making sure she was ready to get up and pounce on her companion without fear of getting cramp. He was stood by the window, looking utterly bored with their current situation, and it seemed he had not made any attempt at all to get along with Aradia. Honestly!

With a small growl of anticipation in her throat, Nepeta sprang at the boy, wrapping her thin arms around his neck. At this, he lost his balance and grabbed out at the curtains with a shout of surprise, which did little to stop his fall and served only to have them tear off the rails and cover them. Nepeta laughed from her perch atop the boys back with the curtains as a cloak, Equius sighing from his position face down on the floor. Evidently, this was by no means the first time she had done that.

Tinkling laughter came from the bed, where Aradia was sat, book forgotten in her lap at the sight of the serious high blood being downed by such a small girl. Nepeta could see the blood rushing to his face as he gently pushed her off, careful of his ridiculous strength, but still wanting to stand up again.

"Nepeta. Such actions are not befitting of someone with your blood." he scolded, frowning at her from behind the lenses of his weird, tiny glasses. Clearly heeding his words, she stuck out her tongue at him and placed her hat back upon her head, the buds on her head poking the fabric uncomfortably.

The next stage of the mutations was involved with the lumps on their heads. Nepeta was the first of their group to get to the second stage of 'budding' mutants, where the lumps began to grow taller like a young deer's antlers when they are in velvet. At the moment, hers had grown to the width of a tennis ball and were beginning to get a pointed end as they grew higher. The problem was… they had heard rumours of what they became, or rather what they were not allowed to become. Once the odd fuzzy-skin covering them came off, they would be… removed… they had heard the screams.

Aradia had been informed of the developments in the mutation, but it seemed she already knew. She had been the daughter of the head mutant-captor in Paris, and so knew full well that the officially released photo's of mutants were heavily photoshopped. Thus, she knew that soon, they would grow these… things… on their heads, and that The Retainment Organisation for Lucid Liathdaonna, or T.R.O.L.L as it was also known, would, in some cases, file or burn them off.

The Liathdaonna – meaning 'grey human in Irish – were the mutants, with 'lucid' referring to the fact that they were sane, as opposed to the 'lurid' mutants discovered that had completely lost their minds, destroying all those in sight. These often died fairly early on, killing both their mothers and themselves in the womb with their strange urges of violence and power. Many suspected that the indigo-blooded people that went insane might have genes related to the Lurid Liathdaonna. Either way they were slung into the boot of a van and carted off somewhere.

In fact, being the daughter of such a powerful member of T.R.O.L.L was part of the reason that Aradia had lasted so long. Like any half-decent parent, her mother had used her influence to hide her child as long as humanely possible, but eventually her colleagues had noticed her change in attitude towards capturing the young mutants, and so they raided her house, finding Aradia and removing her. But not before her mother saw the scabs and scars on the buds on her head, where she had tried to shave, cut and gouge them off. The last expression she saw on her maman's face was of sadness at her daughters removal, and the great disappointment at how she had failed as a mother, having driven her daughter to self mutilation so she would love her. What Aradia did not know is that shortly after her removal her mum was sentenced to death for harbouring mutants at such a high position in the trade.

"So... from this, I would say that we are now, euh, trolls? Is 'troll' the right word in English?" Aradia commented.

"Pawssibly." Nepeta giggled, amused at how they were 'trolls'. "Equius, you troll!"

"I would prefer it if you refrained from befouling her language with your odd notions, gutterblood." Equius said to Aradia in a low voice, yet his Scottish accent combined with her limited knowledge of English made it hard for her to understand his words.

"I am sorry, but could you, euh, could you repeat that?" she asked, but was met with a shake of the head before he went downstairs. Gah, high-bloods were silly. When he was out of earshot, she said to Nepeta, "How do you get… be friends with him? It is because of my blood, no?"

Nepeta wished she could have shaken her head in response to the last question, but it was true; Equius was a complete bitch when it came to blood castes… ugh. A rare, serious look passed over the young girl's face. "Unfurtunately, he's completely caught up with this stupid caste system. I've tried to get him away from it loads, but I can't. The best I can do is be there and show him that green's not so bad."

"But green is not red…" she sighed. Aradia was fairly frustrated at the boy, and despite her success at stopping him from killing Sollu- uh, Group Eight… she still was no closer at breaking the shell he had surrounded himself with. From what she could gather (although it was hard to gather stuff when the object of snooping was Equius), he just needed to see that there were no differences between them, despite their huge gap in the hemospectrum. Well, she would break him. And she would then make him a better person… in due time.

Nepeta looked at the determined smile her new-found friend wore, and was pleased. Equius needed some new friends, and the lower caste, the better.

You go girl. You go.

Anyway, Nepeta decided, it was now almost noon, and they had done little more than take catnaps and stare gloomily into the distance, that was dull dull McDull. Time to do something.

Once the other groups had seen what she liked to call 'mildly-irritated-Equius' after someone had laid a cheeky slap to Aradia's behind, and he had laid a cheeky slap to their face (they had flown backwards), no one had really bothered them. Sure, they could try and shoot him from afar, but image if they missed and he came after them! Shit, man. No one wanted that. No one. The closest they had come to conflict was when Group Eight had passed by when Equius was practicing his BATSHIT CRAZY STRONG fighting moves (beating the shit out with punches), which naturally enraged him. Luckily for them Aradia was in the vicinity… who knows what would have happened if not for that… his strength was bordering on ridiculous lately. If he did not stop getting stronger then something immensely bad was going to happen-

CRASH! "Aurgh!"

Christ's sake… speak of the devil.

Aradia frowned towards the direction of the stairs, "Shall I go?"

Again, a sombre look crossed Nepeta's face, "No. He may well pummel you by mistake. He would regret it later, no matter what he says."

She padded downstairs towards the direction of the loud noise, senses on high alert. Of course, what could have happened is that an intruder got in, but it was far more likely that- yes. Just as suspected. Equius was stood in the kitchen with the door to the fridge held in his hand. Oh no.

"What's happening to me…?" His voice sounded unusually weak, wearied as if the constant stresses of life were getting to him. "What's wrong with me… this never used to happen…"

"You just need to lay off the weights! It's purrfectly normal to get stronger than you realise after doing so much bodybuilding," Nepeta smiled, acting up the optimism to make everything seem normal. But it wasn't. He knew it, she knew it… god, even Aradia could tell something was wrong! "You just need to get used to it.

That was all a lie. Complete and utter bullshit. No. It most certainly was not normal to rip the door off the fridge just by opening it. Who were they even kidding? His strength was bordering on supernatural, and it was terrifying. And he did not even have the 'I-overdosed-on-steriods' look as an excuse being covered in lean muscle and most importantly, at the young age of thirteen. But they would continue to lie, because neither wanted to accept the truth. With physical mutation, comes… something else. Nepeta was at the end of her perky little girl tether, and Equius was ready to beat someone up, so in a rare moment of indulgence, they told Aradia they were going out, and left their shelter in search of something to destroy.

Fist kind. Claw kind. Hell yeah, something was going to die.

* * *

><p>Your name is Sollux Captor.<p>

You are apeshit bananas at computers, and you know ALL OF THE CODES. All of them. And though all your friends recognise your unparalleled achievements as a TOTALLY SICK HACKER, you feel like you could be better. It's one of a number of things you SORT OF BEAT YOURSELF UP ABOUT for NO VERY GOOD REASON during your sporadic BIPOLAR MOOD SWINGS. You have a penchant for BIFURCATION, in logic and in life.

Your mutant mind has been gifted with VISION TWOFOLD, which confuses you no end, so you confuse it back by wearing DUAL COLOURED GLASSES. It confuses you as well.

Your skin has been turning an ODD SHADE OF GREY recently. Knowing what SHIT this would undoubtedly bring, you HID IN YOUR ROOM and skived off school for SEVERAL MONTHS, forging home school papers. But eventually someone realised and you were REMOVED. Your father was TOO DRUNK TO RESIST.

Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Finally got to Tavros's death scene. Now, I ain't gonna lie, I bawled like a total light-weight… whyyyyyy Andrewww whyyyyyy. Also Vriska. I can see why many don't ship this! And, lol, how far behind am I with Homestuck? Very, that's what. Very. Man, I need to get a move onnnn. Also, I need to make sure I don't get Eridan and Equius's names mixed up again. Took ages to correct! XD

Yes, the name for the organisation to get it abbreviated as TROLL took a long time to get. Oh yeah, and on the 'bio' part of my profile thing, I have a progress part for the chapters of this, in case you want to see how it's going along and stuff. Yup.

Finally, because I thought peeps might find this as amusing as I did: I was listening to a song about star signs, and at some point the singer says how she would like a guy who's 'sensitive as a cancer', and all I could think of was Karkat on one of his tantrums!

Anyway, thanks for reading! ^^


	6. In which things are broken

Muscles quivering, Equius leaned against the body of what was once a car. Honestly, it looked more like something one would find at the bottom of a rubbish heap now, than anything you could actually sit in. With nothing more than his fists, he had pummelled it into a messy submission, Nepeta helping with her strange retractable knives that made her look like Wolverine Lass or something. In several areas, the blood from his knuckles smudged blue smears over the once pristine, white paint. It was a waste of his noble blue-blood, but what the hell, it had felt _great_.

With a slight squelch, the game Nepeta had caught were placed on the remains of the bonnet. Equius had absolutely no idea from where she had caught it, or that there even were animals, but he did not mind. They had not thought of getting food, so anything to eat was a godsend. Aradia's stomach had been rumbling through out the first day and well into their second, although to his surprise, she had not complained once despite her low blood status. Odd.

"Ready to head back?" Nepeta asked, a silly grin on her face from the thrill of the hunt.

The girl's father had been a long time friend of Equius's dad, having been to university together, and so when both Mr Leijion and Ms Asar – her mother – were killed in the riots over food as police trying to control them, the care of a seven year old Nepeta fell to the Zahhak's. Any other relatives she had could not take her in, turning their blue-blooded noses up at the girl who had been born to a blue-blood father and yellow-blooded mother, and her mother's half having their own issues to deal with in the increasingly hotter United Arab Emirates. Thus, Equius and Nepeta were raised as siblings, looking out for each other in different ways, but with the same interest at heart. Nepeta kept tabs on his temper and attitude to 'gutterbloods', making sure that the snobbish high-bloods at their school did not turn him into a despicable human being, while Equius would look out for the naïve girl with the olive-blood, knowing full well that many looked down on her for her caste, as well as her Arabic heritage.

Occasionally she would fly into a rage at her treatment and run off into the Scottish wilderness with nothing more than a machete and her senses for protection against the mutated beasts that lay within. At first, the boy had been disgusted with his father for taking in a low blood, and a foreigner at that! Yet when she had taken off into the surrounding woods for the first time, he realised his mistake and sped off after her on the Zahhak's family horse. After hours of searching, he found her hidden in a small cave for shelter from the heavy rain, crude drawings of herself, Equius and the bullies at school scratched onto the rock. It showed her and her adoptive brother beating up the bullies, and although terribly cheesy and sentimental, Equius felt a surge of disgust at himself. From that day onwards, although they did not fight those cruel to Nepeta, they would run off into the forest together and let off their steam by screaming and running around like the children they were, or later on with their father, hunting the strange three-eyed deer and the like around. There was something satisfying about catching your own dinner.

In response to Nepeta's question on heading back to their shelter, Equius nodded. They had been a couple of hours now, so Aradia deserved at least knowing that they would be back. As before, no one dared try and hit the two members of Group Seven.

Aradia was waiting in their safe room, the door barricaded and locked as expected. She let them in with a smile on her face, although the hunger showed through the mask.

"We brought food!" Nepeta grinned as she waltzed in, fingers scratching madly at the lumps on her head. Ugh.

"Vraiment?" The French girl's excitement at something to eat leaked into her voice, and then she blushed. "Ah! Sorry, that was, euh, very rude of me."

"Purfectly fine, I'm starving too."

"Hey, are we okay to cook it? The, uh, guard man said we should not cook it because it makes smell, no? And, euh, the others would know where we… merde, c'est quoi cette mot? Ah! They would know where we are."

Nepeta frowned, "Hmm… oh yeah, I hadn't thought about that."

"I honestly doubt that there will be rival group members patrolling the area in search for smells to pursue," Equius contributed. "Furthermore, we need to consume something before we pass out from hunger. And we cannot eat the meat raw as we may get parasites from it."

So it was decided, and while Nepeta skinned and butchered the meat, separating out the juiciest fillets, Aradia worked on finding a frying pan to cook it in. It seemed that the hob worked just fine, and she soon found something to cook it in… however there were no food items, so no oil or spices to cook it in. The low-blood was well used to cooking for herself due to the late shifts her mother worked, and although her brother would often help out, he too had his own school-work due to applying for a scholarship for university so she could not rely on him.

"Well, this will not be the most best meal I have created, mais, it will have to do," she announced while placing the meat in the pan, still mixing the occasional French words into her speech. It sizzled violently even without oil, and she quickly had to back away for a second until it calmed slightly, or risk getting hot fat spat on her arms. "Bluh, sorry, my English is a bit poor today."

"Don't worry about it. It's better than my French!" the olive-blood giggled, handing her another slice of rabbit. "Can't wait to sink my teeth into this! I'm staaarving."

"Nepeta. Such language is-" Equius began, but Nepeta caught his phrase, completing it for him.

"Not befitting a lady of your caste, I know, I know," she pulled a face that was supposed to be like the tall boy's, and then grinned at Aradia, giving everyone another great look at her sharp teeth. "That looks about done now, surely?"

"Huh? Oh! Oui." the French girl snorted at herself, using a spatula to get the meat from the pan and placing it on a plate. Despite the lack of seasoning, it smelled delicious. But both Aradia and Equius were fairly certain that was only due to their hunger. They were particularly odd specimens that Nepeta had caught: a brace of rabbits with only four legs each, mad! Although allegedly, that was how animals looked before the war… not that any of them could remember such a time, the war being over thirty years ago, and they only fourteen at most.

Nepeta ate first, jabbing the muscled boy in the side when he tried to approach the available food. Watching while she cooked, Aradia could tell that Equius could easily take the food off her, but something stopped him. Despite all his airs and graces about blood castes, he was still great friends with an olive-blood… that had to count for something, surely? But then, any hopes she had were dashed as he took the next pieces and glared at her as she reached for them, daring her with his eyes to try and take them. Although externally, she only gave him a cool look, on the inside she spat, '_Asshole_.'

What on earth did Nepeta see in him?

"Ah! I remembered. While you were out, I found some things."

Aradia, was about to head upstairs to fetch them when a low voice interrupted her, "You went outside without us?"

"Bien sur… how else would I have found them?" she frowned.

"You should not leave the house without one of us, lest you could get killed…" And then when he realised it sounded as if he had _affection_ for a _gutter-blood_, he added hastily, "I, uh, mean, that would kill the rest of us as well."

A little touched by the almost concern he showed, Aradia smirked as she continued up the staircase, fetching the weapons she had found. While she was no Equius, she was _certainly_ not a delicate flower either being a low-blood, having to fight for all the things that a high-blood got for nothing. A boy from Group Five approached her shortly after she had found her weapon of choice, less intimidated by her now Equius was not around. It seemed that his group was stationed at a reasonable distance from theirs, but once they saw Nepeta and Equius leaving, he decided to pay their house a little visit and caught her in the process of closing the door, the blue-blood waiting for her inside with an expanse of piping as a weapon. He cocked an eyebrow higher when he saw her, noticing that she too was younger than the rest of the mutants he had seen, as groups one to six were made up mainly of fifteen and sixteen year olds, the age groups clumped together they best they could.

Not noticing the whip she held in one hand, and the bow and quiver slung over the other, the boy had chuckled and raised the pipe higher. Aradia was suddenly not so sure of her choice in weapon. Sure, she could use it well, but it's not as if she could inflict much damage… unless… and then he had lunged at her, making her dance away quickly, a grin on her face. Just as she thought, the blue-blood had never had to fight a day in his life! This would be easy if all he was going to do was swing that pipe around. With a flick of the wrist, she had wrapped the end of the whip around the pipe and yanked it away from his grip. Grabbing onto it before he had a chance, quick as a flash, she smashed it around the back of his head, making him fall to the ground unconscious. From there she had dragged the boy out of the house and locked him in the shed, waiting for the other two to return before she could dispose of him.

But now they were back, she realised that she had yet to tell them of the boy in the shed and the weapons. Dang, how absent minded could she get? Rushing downstairs, she beckoned them over in the direction of the shed and motioned towards the window.

"So, I caught someone."

* * *

><p><strong>== Be the shy one<strong>

You are now Tavros Nitram, and if you would be so kind, could you, uh, remember his name in the future?

Understandably, the rest of Group Eight had banned Tavros from the nightshift of keeping watch. They had ignored him for the rest of the day save for disgusted glances, and so he remained downstairs, clinging to Tinkerbull like a lifeline to prevent the tears that threatened to fall. No. He was stronger than this. It was not like this was the first time people had been disgusted by his presence, or that people had yelled at him for essentially existing. But, who was he kidding anyway? This was different. In the past, the bullying he received was focused on his differences: scrawny, midget, foreigner. Their cause for the abuse was completely plausible. He had screwed up. He had fallen asleep when someone who could quite easily have killed them was in the goddamn room!

What was wrong with him? He usually had difficulty getting to sleep, his overactive imagination getting the better of him before he managed to get much shut eye. But this time: the intruder came in, and soon after he was asleep. Something was wrong, and there was more to it than initially met the eye. He was sure of it.

Perhaps it was related to something he had noticed when Vriska had been getting the antidote for Sollux. When she had gone in, her voice had sounded angry at first, the girl whom she was getting the cure from terrified, and then as soon as Vriska had toned down the girl just… brought it to her. And then, as Vriska brought her hands away from her head, she grabbed the vial quickly as the girl looked like she was waking from a dream. Something was going on… and he would have to get to the bottom of it… somehow.

Tavros clutched Tinkerbull closer, burying his face into the soft fabric of his childhood toy. Even before the grey had begun to appear, he had been seeking comfort from the toy more and more as puberty struck. His classmates were getting to _that_ age. The age of awkward feelings and wavy voices and growing taller… except he wasn't. He was staying irritatingly short, and it frustrated him no end, especially now when Sollux was so much taller than him… not to mention Vriska. And of course, eager to tease the 'foreigner', his classmates picked on him for this. As if he needed anymore ways to be a stupidly shy fool! Ugh.

He had found himself developing a crush on a girl in his class. A sweet girl by the name of Jade Harley, with straight, black hair, bright green eyes and slightly bucked teeth. But like hell did he care about the teeth, he saw her as perfect. And yet, it seemed he was doomed to remain in the dreaded 'friend-zone', as she remained oblivious to his (incredibly vague) advances. Oh well, even if he did grow another twenty centimetres, there would be no point; he was never going to see her again.

Creak!

The boys head swivelled around towards the source of the noise, and to his surprise saw Vriska. Speak, or rather _think_ of the devil. She looked a little embarrassed at being caught in the act, betrayed by the smudge of blue across her cheeks, but offered no further explanation for why she was downstairs.

"Uh… what do you want?"

"Trying to look nonchalant, are we?" she smirked coldly, flicking her hair back from her face; her fringe had grown a crazy amount in the months of the basement confinement.

"W-well, uh…" He bit his lip, looking shy, but really trying to hold back the tears her words threatened to bring on with sharp pain. Anything could set him off at this point, he was ashamed to admit, but not in front of Vriska. He would not put himself through that. "No."

"Whatever. I need you to do a job for me… do you think you can do that?" Her smile turned sickeningly sweet in, what he assumed, was an ironic way… that or she was actually trying to _seduce_ him. Good lord. Even the thought of that made the poor boys face flush a deep orange-brown.

"Uh… it depends w-what." Ugh, he really needed to do something about his speech problems.

"I don't think you are in much of a position to enquire about that, don't you, Tavros?" That god-awful smile remained fixed on her face, her eyes glinting with malice behind the glasses. "No? Good. I was hoping you would go with that answer. Now then, we're going to set a trap!"

"Uh… how do you know how to set those up?"

"The internet… although you low bloods can't use it fully, can you?" she teased, leading him out of the front door into the fake sunlight. The brightness of it hurt his eyes, and he held a hand to his face, casting them in shadow. Tinkerbull was back in the rucksack, secure and safe. She fixed her dark-brown eyes upon his. "Now then, because of your… mistake… we now have someone wandering around who knows where we are. And so, we need to catch this jerk-bag. Okay?"

Tavros nodded.

"Good. Now," she inspected the area around the door, deciding what the best trap to lay would be. Eventually, thumb and forefinger cradling her chin, she gave a nod and turned to the boy. "Right. We need rope."

"Uh… rope?"

"Yes. Rope. Parlais-vous Anglais? It's what you use to tie things with. Actually, a length of wire would do, I guess. But it would have to be pretty long, or this won't work…" At Tavros's hesitance to go, she clicked her fingers. "Well, what are you waiting for? Too scared to go off on your own, am I right?" With another hesitant nod, Vriska laughed, "I am. God, you coward."

It was odd how quickly she had gotten over the fact that she had almost died. Perhaps she never believed it in the first place and just wanted to scream at someone. That was perfectly believable.

They spent a good half hour rummaging around the house and the surrounding garden, yet by the end of if, the most they had found was a short length of string. Frowning, Vriska then tore upstairs once more, grabbing a length of curtain from the bathroom and ripping it from the rail holding it up. Then, ignoring her team-mates looks, for Sollux had felt it necessary to join their hunt as the night approached, she began to tear the fabrics into narrow strips and plait it together, making a makeshift rope. Vriska then taught the other two how to weave a three piece plat, and set them up making more of the rope. After another half hour, they had a decent four metres of rope, with their pace quickening as the boys got the hang of plaiting, and the sun tumbled down the skyline, embodying their very urgent deadline. Set the traps, or die.

For a thirteen year old girl from England, where there were pretty much no animals that could pose a threat to someone's wellbeing, she made the traps ridiculously well. When asked, she merely smirked, "Fatal online role play. You don't know how good it is until you play it like a high-blood."

Tavros, an avid player of such games, gave a grin, "Can you actually connect _into_ the game?"

With a movement that appeared practiced, she lifted her mane of hair up, revealing a plastic disk embossed into the skin at the top of the neck. It was this disk that allowed all those above teal-blood to access the internet on a completely new level. On certain websites, and the count was increasing by the day, the user could immerse themselves into what they were doing. Whether it was checking emails, playing online games or browsing image results on google, you would appear in a dark space, floating, and all around, panels of light would appear before you were thrown into what you were doing. Of course, the process came with throw backs… mainly the port the computer would need to have to your brain to get such imagery. It was a tricky operation, with the first few to get it dying or receiving permanent brain damage. This alone almost got the practice banned, but the high-blooded idol Feferi Peixes got it done, and so others flocked to be just like her and the practice was fully inaugurated into the high-blood way of life. Another excuse to act superior to the low bloods. The process of getting into the internet was rather squeamish and awkward though.

"Could you, uh, maybe show me how you get in?" Tavros asked, awed by how he was talking to someone with the link.

Vriska flicked the hair back into place and replied, "Maybe later. It's not exactly what one would call a good time right now. It's like dreaming, and I don't want to be snoozing when the snooper comes in… unlike some."

And so they waited. And waited. And waited.

Traps on every opening to the house, be they simple rope traps intended to suspend the trapped upside-down in the air, or complicated ones involving the hurling of large rocks towards anyone who tried opening the windows. Despite her sudden nonchalant attitude towards the fiasco of the dead animals in the bathroom, the event had deeply scared Vriska. It was evident from her glances at areas in shadow every few seconds, to the way her hands trembled as she worked on the rope.

They put the finishing touches on their escape plan if needed while each eating a tin of food each. If they had to leave quickly, they may not be able to take all of the food with them, and so they made sure there was at least something to keep them going. All three had packs with a fair amount of food and a torch in, and in addition to that supplies from Tavros's backpack that they deemed necessary. Vriska had the first aid kit, ironically enough, and brandished her knife; Tavros's pack contained a large, thick blanket along with the remainder of the rope they had made and the jousting-dagger, wielded in his left hand; finally, Sollux had a decent sized bottle of water in his bag to accompany the food. They were poised for the mystery intruder, strung tight.

"I knew we should have left while we had the chance…" Vriska muttered as she stared at the red stain from the bathroom that had been seeping into the carpet all day, crossing the room towards her.

"We can't just leave… not with Sollux." Tavros reminded, seemingly trying to comfort her. Well, it worked, because he was absolutely right. While the geek could wander around the house, his movements were slow, lethargic, and akin to that of an old man's. Yet as the evening drew on, he grew stronger, his mutant cells healing faster than a regular human. He was a geek, but he was a strong geek with a bloody good immune system.

It was then when they heard the tapping of finger nails on the window, and all three pairs of eyes flicked instantly to the sole pane of glass in the room… nothing… which meant the intruder would be trying to get in downstairs…

Vriska began to swear under her breath, like a mantra, as she stared at the door. It was almost amusing how put out she was by this, so Sollux slowly stood up and checked their only escape route – the window. They had picked their room well, as under the large window was a sloping roof with a mere two metre drop. It was feasible, and their only option at the moment. Good.

_CRASH_!

Glass smashed loudly, rock hurling forward eagerly as a window was slid open. The noise had come from downstairs, giving them about a minute at most for the intruder to get to their room, and perhaps another two minutes to get through the traps on the door and then… who knew. They had been odd enough last time to only threaten and shock them badly, but this time, the second night, it was a given that they were out for their blood.

"You really think a locked door will stop me?" they called up the stairs, their voice strange, androgynous. Perhaps the people at The Retainment Organisation for Lucid Liathdaonna were bored with the amount of time it was taking these children to kill each other, and were releasing genetically engineered monsters to get the job done quicker! Trust Vriska to think up something like that, they would later laugh.

Sollux nodded at the other two: it was time to leave. First out was the geek, soundlessly sliding their window open and hopping out, skidding down the roof before pausing at the end and dropping off the edge. Next up was Tavros, and padding towards the window, he stopped as a strange laughing noise echoed menacingly around the house. Anxious to be gone, Vriska motioned furiously at him to get a move on as the footsteps of the intruder got closer, and yet he still did not move, frozen to the spot by fear of not only the person coming towards them, but also the daunting drop that awaited them.

"_Move you baby_!" she hissed violently, and when he made no further movement, leapt towards him and pushed him out of the window.

It seemed to go in slow motion after that… he tumbled down the roof, a look of terror in his eyes before he met the end of the tiles, and dropped, hitting the hard stone patio back first… Vriska would never forget the scream of pure agony that followed. It sent shivers up her spine and her breath to hitch. That was not a scream for minor injuries…

Yet she did not have time for him as she herself finally leapt out the window, and landed neatly on her feet, sparing a moment to look back at where she had come from. Currently, it did not appear as if the intruder had gotten through into the bedroom yet. Good. Although with that scream, they would surely know that they had left the room…

Tavros lay on the stone flooring, sprawled out with orange tinted tears rushing down his face, and the noises… his breath hitched wildly as he struggled to take consistent inhalations, whimpering and trying to ignore the orange blood seeping into the fabric on his back.

"Tavros, come on, we need to get going." Vriska said, desperately assuming he was making a big fuss out of nothing. "Get up! We don't have time to lick our wounds."

Wincing, Tavros tried to sit up, only to have fear spread across his features, petrifying them.

"I-I c-can't feel m-my my…" His hand flew to his mouth as he gulped, breathing as deeply as possible to hold back further sobs. "Oh god… m-my legs… V-Vriska… I t-think…"

And then it clicked, although she hoped desperately it was only temporary. She called Sollux over, chucked Tavros's bag at him to carry, and then scooped up the boy in her arms bridal-style. '_Lucky he's so tiny_.'

Vriska could feel the rust-coloured blood throbbing into her jumpsuit sleeves with every movement she made. And at every twist of her body as she ran to the best of her ability, Tavros moaned, the jostling of his back creating near unbearable pain… until pain and blood-loss reached such a limit that he blacked out in her arms. Good. That was probably best considering what she was about to do. The only way out of the garden (other than the booby-trapped gate) was a metre-and-a-half tall fence. Once Sollux was safely over, she passed her bag to him, and then Tavros's slumped form. Sollux cast her an alarmed look, but she had little time to register it as she vaulted over, scooping Tavros back up, along with her pack.

"What happened to him?" Sollux panted as they jogged. Thankfully he was well enough to get them a good head start on the intruder, or perhaps it was the adrenaline rush.

"He was being slow, so I pushed him out the window…"

"You puthed him?" the geek cried incredulously. "Are you thtupid?"

"I didn't think that would happen!" she cried, then remembered to keep her voice down as they fled. She was thankful for the cover of dark; no one could see her tears at what she had just done. No. Vriska did not cry. Never again, _ever_. Her eyes were just overly irritable at the cool air rushing into them. Yeah, that was it… disregarding the fact that she wore glasses. "Look. He'll be fine. We will all pull through, and win this bloody game."

"Is this just a game to you?" Sollux murmured, before turning quickly to avoid the glares of a group settling down for the night. Shit. Where were they going to go? That house alone had taken a lot of luck, and if they did not stop soon, again, bad things were going to happen. Honestly, Vriska thought, it seemed that one of the boys was always in trouble! Gosh.

They did not have any allies they could go to, nor another idea for a safe area. Unless of course, if Group Two had succumbed to their injuries and died, leaving the comfortable house free. Perhaps that would be the best option, but goddamn it, where even was that place? Okay, she admitted it, Vriska should have paid attention. But really, that first night, she was trying her best to keep Sollux breathing and find a place for them to hide in all fairness. And it had worked! At least for a bit…

Eventually, she found the old Group Two bungalow. Hesitantly, she looked in through the windows for any signs of life. There were large amounts of green blood on the floor… Vriska guessed that she had hit an artery when she cut the kids arm… had she… killed him? A deep pang of fear coursed through her, but she could not dwell on it. Not with an injured team mate. Not when Tavros was on his final legs (ha ha, Vriska). His blood made a dull splat as it dripped onto the stone beneath the window she was peering through. Well, she may as well _try_ going in. And so she did.

Creeping through the house, the blue-blood checked all the rooms, assisted by Sollux. With every step she took, Vriska expected a member of Group Two to leap out and surprise her, perhaps with a poison dart to her eye or something to keep it interesting. But there was nothing. Not in any of the rooms. Only the vivid green bloodstains that clung bitterly to the carpet. Oh god, oh god, oh god… she had killed someone. She had actually _killed_ someone.

Vriska sunk to her knees, the passed out Tavros heavy in her arms. Sensing an imminent freak out, Sollux set to locking the doors and windows, moving slowly once the adrenaline had worn off, and he was left with a weak, only just cured body. Still, shuffling around got it done, and hell, no one was about to come in at this time of night… other than their intruder.

The duo set to work on Tavros's back, pulling his boiler suit down to the waist, and sliding the vest off (thit, he'th whimpering in hith thleep whenever we move him) to get a good look at his injury. A shard of glass from the broken window the intruder had used to get in had gouged a deep slice into his back, hence all the blood. But they could not understand why that would remove his ability to walk… but then, he had landed on his back fairly hard.

"Fuck this, what have I done?" Vriska moaned.

"I think thath the last thing he wanth from you at the moment." Sollux replied, irritating as ever. "We'll jutht have to leave him and thee how it turnth out."

Vriska nodded, then flipped Tavros back onto his back, ignoring his unconscious wince the best she could. Just as she had done to Sollux the very night before, she pulled the blankets up to his chin, and prepared for a long night.

"Vrithka, you need to thleep."

Too tired to protest at his words, she reminded, "Anything at all happens, you wake me up, okay?"

And then, careful not to jostle the poor boy further, she slid under the covers, and lay there, too tired ironically enough and traumatised at what had just occurred to fall asleep at first. Yet as Tavros began to settle into a more regular sleeping pattern, she found the gentle rise and fall of his chest oddly soothing, and the soft in, out, in inhalations of breath calming on her mind… and slowly, slowly, she drifted off to sleep.

"Goodnight."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Oh lordy this is getting angsty! Still though, writing as my patron troll, Nepeta, is fun I guess! She's refreshing compared to the BITCHBITCH that is Vriska, lol.

RIGHT, so, sorry, I made a mistake in the last chapter. Equius should be thirteen, not fourteen. Their birthdays are just in the month that their star sign is mainly in. So Nepeta is the oldest, followed by Kanaya and Terezi, who are already fourteen. And then Vriska, Equius, Gamzee, Eridan and so on until we reach Karkat who's the youngest. That's how it is, yup. And this is set sometime in November currently.

Oh yeah, and since I haven't got many concrete ideas on other pairings in this, is there any pairings that anyone really wants to see in particular? Because I can probably try to work it in at least a little c:

And thanks for reading! ^^


	7. The four wheeled device

**== Tavros, wake already**

…

**== Tavros, wake up**

…

**== Your mother is a hamster and your father smells of elderberries**

…

**== Fine. Be Vriska**

You are now Vriska Serket.

Images flitted through her mind of strange unrelated things: of her mother's and sister's faces, this oddly nice stone she had found once, her favourite meal (Mexican), the view she was usually greeted with in the mornings of her bedroom… except not today. And probably not ever again. The final image that shot before her eyelids was that of the boy she had killed…

When she awoke, an early morning dew clung to the world outside the window, with a few small birds singing… or maybe it was a recording, who knew? Either way, it seemed like the perfect start to the day, aside from the boy who lay next to her, silent as the grave. Memories from the day before came flooding back and she sat up quickly, leaning across to find Tavros's pulse… if he still had one.

First, she felt for his wrist, and to her horror, there was no pulse. Next, she spread her palm directly above his heart, and waited.

Lub dub… lub dub… lub dub…

Breathing a sigh of relief, she sunk back down into the comfort of the bed. Although it was a weak, fluttering heartbeat, it was a heart beat none the less. If she were religious, she would have thanked God. Yet she was not, and so she merely cast her dice a thankful look. It seemed that Tavros's earlier bad luck had been countered by him staying alive throughout the night. Group Eight were still in action.

Wait… how long had she been asleep for? Surely all night by the light coming in through the window.

"Tho he'th okay, right?" Sollux drawled from his chair by the door, looking awake, if not a little exhausted, eyes screwed tightly shut as he rubbed them from behind the shades.

Vriska shrugged. "Well, he's still alive, if that's what you mean."

"That'th good enough for now," the geek decided, getting up from the chair and walking towards Vriska. "Your turn to keep watch. I'm going to bed."

Although she would have quite happily slept for another few hours, she left her side of the bed, and walked over to Tavros's side.

"Hey, you, wake up," she said, prodding his arm. When he did not respond, she lightly shoved him. "I said wake up!"

"Vrithka, let him thleep." Vriska pulled a face at the geek, but left Tavros alone nonetheless. She marched over to where the chair was, and plonked herself down into it, resting her chin in her palm. And so began the long and boring shift as she waited for one of them to wake.

After a couple of hours, a groan came from the bed, followed by the sound of an imminent panic attack. Tavros had awoken.

* * *

><p><strong>== Be the girl with the goggles<strong>

You are now Feferi Peixes

Life in the mansion was uneventful, and if she was honest, not very different from her life before the mutations, with the exception of Kanaya's presence. Eridan had taken to sweeping around the place, with some random piece of curtain tied around his shoulders in place of his usual cloak. It was weird, but at least he was acting normal. Kanaya, on the other hand, spent most of her time in the observatory with Feferi, conversing about anything other than their old lives. Because of both of their extremely rare blood types, they emphasised with each other and quickly became friends, despite knowing only what Wikipedia said about the other.

Kanaya had a love for tailoring, and someday wished to become a fashion designer of some sort, despite the midwifery that her blood-caste usually demanded. However such an outcome looked bleak for her; there rarely choice as to what she could become, and it a way it made her more trapped than the low-bloods. But hell if that mattered now since she was a mutant.

Yet that day Feferi did not want to speak to the Russian girl, who seemed to be moping about something. She was not in the mood to enquire about what was wrong with the world, and so left the house, double-ended trident in hand, to explore the gardens.

Buzzing from the electric fence created a bass to the sounds in the garden, with the rustling of wind through the bushy canopy the over sound. Tapping her long fingernails against the handle of the trident in a certain pattern, she was amused to find it could almost be music. And so she began to sing, hesitantly with little gusto.

"I opened my eyes, last night, and saw you in the low light. Walking down by the bay, on the shore, staring up at the planes that aren't there anymore." As she sang further, she grew more confident and span in a little circle, amused by her fairly… interesting… singing. A grin spread over her face at the lyrics, which were fairly odd, but sweet none the less, and her ridiculously long hair floated around her as she swirled, creating a halo of dark hair cascading around her body. She was incredibly thankful that they had not decided to shave their hair off. "Time together is just never quite enough. When you and I are alone I've never felt so at home. What will it take to make or break this hint of love?"

Despite knowing full well that Kanaya and probably Eridan could well see her from the observatory prancing around, she continued. The singing made her feel less scared by the situation, and relieved stress like it was nobody's business, which was definitely a plus, as she had been on the verge of pulling her hair out from frustration. "All my islands have sunk, in the deep. So I can hardly relax or even oversleep. I feel as if I were home, some nights, when we count all the ship lights."

"I guess I'll never know, why sparrows love the snow." A deep voice came from behind her, startling the girl mid-dance despite how they could clearly sing better than her. She whirled around, the tips of the trident pointing at the neck of the intruder… oh. It was just Eridan. Really, she should have been able to guess from the accent, but due to puberty, his pitch had been getting lower for longer periods of time, and she was getting confused at these two different voices. Not to mention the fact that his accent was dropped while singing. "Wwhoa, Fef. It's just me."

"Oh, sorry! I wasn't really expecting you to pop up… oh cod, how much did you hear?" she blushed, embarrassed at the thought of someone else hearing her singing. For Feferi, singing was incredibly personal. She did not want even Eridan to hear it really. "Um… this is awkward."

"Wwhy?" Eridan smiled. He really was nice when he was not swearing every two seconds, or waving that absurdly huge gun around. "Come on, Fef. Wwe've knowwn each other for over ten years now. A bit a' singin' isn't that bad."

Rather than answering, she avoided his gaze, because how to say that she had been getting these strange feelings in her gut whenever she looked at him, recently? How, god it was embarrassing, that she had been having dreams where he would kiss her, and she would offer no resistance and almost, _almost,_ hope that he would do the same in real life. But it was stupid. He was a _brother_ to her, not a boyfriend, and she would do well to remember it. Sheesh.

"It's just… embarrassing. That's all." she sighed, then gave a small yelp as he grabbed her around the waist and span her in a small circle, the curtain-cloak flaring out behind him as she was lifted off the ground, screaming in delight at their antics. Oh cod, this was _Eridan_! How could she even be seeing him in such a way, with his hipster-glasses, the bad-guy cloak, his over-sized scarf and the cute purple streak in his hair? Lousy goddamn stupid hormones making her act stupid.

Then, as they mock waltzed to the sound of the electric fence, they sang together, "We'll turn off all of the lights and set this ballroom aglow!"

When they finally returned inside, darkness had fallen. Granted, they had not sung for the hours they were outside, but instead explored the vast gardens, hand in hand like they had travelled as children, when they were still the orphaned nobodies that Feferi continued to feel like on the inside.

**== Reminisce about tragic past**

Oh _okay_, you will tell all. But it _is_ tragic.

Following the crisis of the nuclear war, it was not an uncommon sight for orphans to be wandering around without parents. And indeed, it was also not an uncommon sight for these orphans to be trafficked into certain unpleasant industries. It was also well known that certain stuck up royal-bloods found it perfectly acceptable to sleep around with such orphans to relieve some of the stresses that came with their titles. It was from such unpleasant unions of aristocrats and prostitutes that Feferi Peixes and Eridan Ampora came about.

Feferi's mother had been a strong willed woman who very rarely raised her voice, but when she did, people knew to hide. Like many others in such predicaments, orphaned by the war, she had decided that the only way to earn a vaguely decent living for herself would be to sell her body, thus she did. So one pompous aristocrat, and a failed contraceptive later, Feferi came about. If she had her way, she would have quit the industry all together at the girls birth, but in such an economic climate, it was impossible. Certainly, she was a high-blood, but her downfall was the extra toe on her left foot, which automatically removed such privileges, so for the first five years of Feferi's life, she was raised in a brothel in Moscow. In a similar situation, came Eridan. His father was a sweet and metrosexual young man, with a love for dying his hair a delicate shade of purple, except hell it was dyed, for that was his title removing mutation. These traits had passed on to Eridan, with his love of looking pretty darn fine 24-7, just as his dad had raised him. The industries Feferi's mum worked in dealt with men and women near equally, and following a similar failed contraceptive, nine months later, Eridan's father found a small basket delivered to his room. Inside was a baby, purple in the face from crying with a shock of dark hair and intense dark eyes – Eridan.

Having rooms next door to each other, not to mention a healthy amount of attraction to the other, their parents raised the children together, one taking care of them while the other worked, and so on. It was an odd existence, but for five years, they were happy. And then, between them, they had finally saved up enough to leave the prostitution business and buy a home together. But in a fit of jealousy, one of Feferi's mum's previous customers shot both her and Eridan's dad when he caught them together, killing them, and then himself. Feferi and Eridan would have had a home, and a family. But fate had a different future in mind.

With no one to take them in, the children were thrown onto the streets of Moscow mid-winter. It was a miracle in itself that they managed to survive for the first winter, let alone another three _years_, and yet they did.

What earned them the money for survival, however, was a very, very strange thing. Eridan, from the age of four, had been able to change the appearance of objects at first, and then change them into a completely different item. His father hadn't a clue how he did this, but he encouraged his son's talent in case of need, but reminded him not to tell anyone outside their makeshift family. But it had its limits. As soon as the boy fell asleep, the magic was reversed, and the item turned back into what it was before. For the first few years on the streets, this proved to be an incredibly valuable asset, with Eridan transforming clumps of snow, dead leaves and the like into beautiful, plump, red roses to sell to those walking by. While the residents of Moscow probably should have questioned where such gorgeous roses had come from, most decided instead to give the children some money. Really, they should have sent them to the police or something, but most assumed they were rust-bloods without parents. How wrong they were.

Each night, they would return to a small den they had made and huddle together for warmth, and still did now, despite their vast penthouse and stacks of money. Except now they huddled for comfort, rather than warmth.

Any money the made went towards food or blankets, occasionally paracetamol if one got sick, as that was the only medicine they knew of. But due to their purple-blood, neither fell ill very often, as long as they drank enough. Although disaster struck around about the time they were seven, when they were removed from Moscow on account of scamming people. Well, they essentially were when the bunches of roses people would buy turned into slush as soon as they got home. They were dumped in a rural area of Russia, and as far as the police knew, the scamming rust-blood low lives were out of mind. Out away from the cities, they faced a different dilemma. They could no longer sell roses to the occupants if they would see the same people day in day out. So they only sold them to tourists from then onwards.

Yet it was while handing out a rose to a kind blue-blood passing through, that Feferi pricked her finger on one of the thorns, creating a small, royal purple bead of blood. The man's eyes had bulged, and he immediately rushed the two of them off to be tested. Indeed, Feferi Peixes was the human on earth of the highest possible blood-caste, with Eridan not far behind her. Due to their hardships, also because they just looked so darn _cute_, they were bolstered to celebrity status, and given all of the money they desired through mysterious sponsors. Heck, some oddities even wrote _fanfiction_ about their mysterious past, and even them getting together.

In the years that passed, Eridan slowly lost his ability to transmogrify items as he no longer had to practice it and became arrogant, much to Feferi's horror. They both forgot how to speak their original Russian, and as a result, much of the hardships they went through. But then again, they were only eight when they were found and moved to New York, so it was hardly surprising, and expected really that they would put much of it out of mind.

That was before the mutations began.

"Hey, grumpy-gills. How are your sides?" Feferi asked as they came back inside. Rubbing the flanks of her ribs, she noted a change in texture, and then for completely comparative measures only, of course, she ran her hand down his side, made all the more uncomfortable at the purple blush that flashed up on his cheeks.

"Wwhoa, have you even heard a' personal space?"

She snorted, and pulled him in the direction of the bathroom. "Come on, I've got an idea of what they are!"

"Uh… wwait, wwhat are you suggestin'?"

"Aah! That's not what I meant! Throw me a line, Eridan, will you?" Feferi grinned, deciding that he had assumed the worst… which he had. Jeez, she was not a pervert and suggesting they should bathe together… not completely. "No, well, I just have this weird hunch. Anyway, come on, I'll show you. It's too weird to explain."

The bathroom of the mansion was enormous, with a bath the size of a small swimming pool on the ground floor. Pristine, white tiles created elegant patterns on the floor, heated by geothermal energy, they were warm to walk on, and so the high-bloods discarded their shoes and socks as Feferi began running a bath. All around them, strange images were portrayed on the walls as mosaics; the Nemean lion, Aphrodite and Eros transforming into fish to escape the monster Typhon, and many others. It took them a few minutes to figure out it was the depictions of the star signs. Ah.

"Looks about done." Feferi switched off the taps, and thus the flowing, heavenly scented water. "Okay, so before you freak out big-time, this about these… things we're getting on our sides. Don't pull me out straight away, okay?"

Feferi then proceeded to step out of the boiler suit, and pull her vest off so she was stood only in her bra and shorts. Instantly a purple flush began to rise on both of the faces of the present members, but she countered this by giving Eridan a smile, and jumping into the water. For about a minute, she simply sat underwater, grinning to herself in sheer awe at what her body had done. From her sides, it appeared as if strange coils of purple blood began to diffuse into the surrounding water. With the second minute, Eridan panicked and leapt in after her, worried that she had gotten stuck.

Ohgodohgodohgod something was very, very wrong with his sides. His boiler suit seemed to be sucking into them somehow, creating such an odd sensation that he tried to scream with shock, but that tended not to work when one was underwater, and as the water soaked into his clothes, he sunk to the bottom, too heavy to swim upwards with any ease. His mouth fixed in a wide gape, he clawed at his side, trying to alleviate the wrong feeling that rested there. Feferi made a strange glubbing noise as she grabbed him around the waist and dragged him back to the surface.

"Jesus Christ, Fef! Wwhat wwere you thinkin'?" he whimpered while gulping down the sweet air that surrounded him once more. "I mean, seriously, wwhat?"

"Ugh, your scarf!" she sighed, unwinding the limp mess and laying it out to dry over a radiator.

"My scarf?" he cried incredulously. "I think that's the least a' our worries. Wwhen did you decide it wwould be a great idea to drowwn yourself?"

"I wasn't! Let me explain… no actually, I'll show you properly this time." Feferi gave him a devious grin as she unzipped his boiler suit and pulled his vest off, despite his confused protests. "Look."

First, she motioned his gaze towards her sides, where four slits rested between the gaps of her ribs on either side. At the moment, a flap rested firmly shut on all of them, allowing no air in, yet when she slid into the water once more, they opened out, extending delicate, purple, external gill fronds that seemed to taste the water, absorbing the oxygen easily from the liquid that surrounded it. Next, she motioned towards the very same flaps on his sides, where his gills resided, hidden within until they encountered water once more. Covered by fabric, his gills had previously been unable to extend fully, so resulted in them only partially opening, with fabric being pulled in rather than water.

"Come on, take a dive! It feels really weird, but good."

"No wway." he protested, put off by how it had turned out last time. "I'm not goin' through that again."

"Oh come on, grumpy gills! It's fin!"

"Your fish puns are gettin' more an' more obscure."

"Because you're being stupid! Get in here, or I'll make you!" Feferi pouted, fighting a grin because she knew she would win out in the end. "Scared of the water, are we?" But for once, she did not get her way. He merely pulled the boiler suit back on and stalked out of the room, cape swishing as he went. Had she… pushed him too far?

* * *

><p><strong>== Console Tavros as he wakes, Vriska<strong>

Well, you don't know about _consoling_ or anything, but pestering works for you.

"Oh fuck."

Interestingly enough, that was the first time Vriska had heard Tavros swear in such a manner. Although really, if anyone had the right to swear, it was the boy who had just permanently lost the use of his legs.

"Tavros-" Vriska began, trying to prevent the imminent panic attack just peaking over the horizon.

"Oh… oh god… shit, shit, shit." His breaths came faster as he began to hyperventilate, but heck was Vriska going to let that happen.

Grabbing him by the shoulders, she stared at him. "Hey, Tavros, listen to me-"

"You… why did you push me?" Finally noticing Vriska hovering over him, Tavros looked her right in the eyes and uttered his confused question.

"Because you were being freaking slow! If I hadn't done that, the intruder would have got us, and we _all_ would have died!" she hissed, very much aware that Sollux would not appreciate being woken. Then, after realising her thought pattern, decided she did not give two stuffs about whether Sollux wanted to sleep. But finally, remembered she could not yell even if she did want to wake Sollux for being a smart arse, because it would give away their position once more. Hell if she was going to do that again.

Tavros flushed, embarrassed, ashamed at his weakness. And yet, a flicker of confidence made him mumble, "You didn't have to… to push me like that."

"Ugh." She could just about stand him before, but this… this _weakness_ he was now developing… it disgusted her. Weakness was the little girl who came home crying because she had been bullied for her glasses. She was not going to tolerate such weakness ever again. Flicking her hair back over her shoulder, she placed her fingers on both temples in the position she had come to associate with the strange psychic powers she had been developing. Her disgust being the strong surge of emotions that allowed the instincts in her mind to surface. "Okay, so I'm going to test something."

"Uh…" he started, before she stared into his eyes, making him her puppet.

In his weakened state, controlling him felt different to the previous subjects of her mind-control. It was almost as if she could feel the cut on his back… ouch. That was pretty nasty. And then for his legs, there was a blank zone for that area, sort of like no reception on a phone.

"Sit up." she ordered, and indeed, Tavros put his arms at his sides and slid upright into a seating position, his thin arms quivering as they did all of the work. This was not looking good. Mentally crossing her fingers, she said, "Good boy. Now, stand up."

His torso twisted to accommodate for the imminent turn… but it never came, because stopped by the friction of the bed sheets, and his spine, his legs could not,_would_ not move.

"Stand up." She tried again, but with the same results. "Stand up. Stand up! Stand up you baby!"

He was paraplegic. He could not stand up… ever again.

Frustrated, she broke off the connection and stalked over to the chair, sitting heavily in it, lounging as she stared at the boy's endeavours to stand. He was never going to walk again, it was clear from the pain in his face as he furiously rubbed at his spine… pfft, as if that was going to help him in any way.

For a while, he shot her terrified looks. He now knew of her power, and what she could make him do… what she could make _anyone_ do. If she wished, she could simply force people to kill themselves. It was exactly as he had suspected. Such power… it was insane! But something had been holding her back from an imminent killing spree that would place Group Eight as winners. Either the power had not yet fully developed, or she was not able to kill people as her heartless attitude suggested. Tavros, of course, had not been there to witness her minor freak-out when she realised she had killed a member of Group Two. So he was justly horrified at this power, and what it could mean for him.

As Sollux slept for a further few hours, she continued to watch Tavros sadistically. Alarmingly, she was finding it interesting, almost enjoyable even to watch him struggle with his new found disability. Sure, she would have to pick him up to place him back on the bed every now and then, but it worth the fun… until she got fed up of having to stand every few minutes.

"You looked like you almost stood there, hotrod!" she called, grinning at his hopeful look… before he collapsed into a small pile on the floor, and she collapsed in giggles.

But rather than shoot her hateful glares, he simply gave a sad sigh and began the long journey of hoisting himself back onto the bed, as Vriska had since gotten bored of lifting him on. Running a hand through his hair, making many parts of it stick up on end, he then rested his face in his hands… she could hear the sobbing from where she was sat: the dry, hitching sobs, the tear's splats as they hit the fabric of his trousers. He was muttering something under his breath… what even was he doing? Oh. He was clutching that Tinkerbull toy of his. That would explain it.

Eventually, he wiped the orange-tinted liquid from his face, and stared blankly into space. Ugh, this was almost painful to watch. '_Is he having a mental breakdown? Should I do something_?' Silently, Tavros reached for Sollux's shoulder, and immediately, Vriska fixed her eyes upon his.

"What are you doing?"

"Uh… I need to, uh, go to the… the toilet." he mumbled, making them both flush with embarrassment.

"Oh Jesus, yes, yes, wake him up." Vriska stammered, horrified by the mere thought of having to take him to the toilet. "Ack, too much information."

In stark contrast to the girl, Sollux was understanding of Tavros's situation and, with his muscles straining a little, the geek carried him towards the bathroom, instructing him to yell when he needed him again. Upon returning to the bedroom, Sollux was greeted with a sour looking Vriska with her fingers stuck in her sensitive ears (dear god, she did not want to hear him on the loo). "What? You're gonna have to get uthed to hith dithability. The chanceth of him recovering are low."

"That doesn't mean I have to like it." she replied, eyes narrowing.

"Seriouthly? How do you think thith feelth to him? He'th _disabled_." Sollux's face retained it's carefully blank expression, yet Vriska could sense the anger behind his words. She could break him yet.

Evidently done, Tavros called, "Uh… Sollux?"

"Yeah." the boy replied, then went to fetch him back. Now unblocking her ears, Vriska could hear their conversation on the other side of the house near perfectly. By the sound of it, Tavros was apologising profusely for making Sollux carry him around, to which the geek was assuring him that it was the least he could do. It sickened her to her core… within a few days, she had killed one child, and permanently disabled another… well, permanently for who they were now.

If Tavros had been a high-blood, and obviously not a mutant, he could easily get treatment in the form of stem cells and nanobots to fix him. They would take a sample of his cells, grow a clone of him and extract the stem cells while it was still no more than a clump of cells. No more individually conscious than a finger. And yet Vriska imagined that Tavros would have a problem with creating, and then disposing of a clone to save his spine. He was sappy like that. Odd. And as for the nanobots… well, perhaps he would be a little less opposed to those. But they could not do their work without the stem cells, so there would be little use.

"Vrithka, could you get the door?" Sollux asked, unable to open the door handle with his arms preoccupied on holding Tavros up.

"Magic word!" she called back to be irritating, also because he should use manners.

"Ugh… pleathe."

"I'm sorry?"

"Theriouthly? Vrithka, open the fucking door."

With a sigh, she twisted the handle and opened the door, allowing Sollux to stagger in and dump the smaller boy on the bed, before he took the chair Vriska had previously been in.

"Hey, tho what are we going to do about moving you in the long term?" the geek asked Tavros, who at the moment was just looking incredibly embarrassed.

"Oh… uh, I hadn't really… um… well, thought about this in the, uh, long term." It was understandable; no one would readily embrace their paralysis without a fight, or believing that there was a glimmer of hope in the future that they would be able to walk again.

"Well, we're going to have to make you something then. Because I sure as hell aren't going to carry you all the way to another shelter if things go wrong again." The girl fisted her hands deep within the warmth of her hair, then relaxed once more. "We'll have to fashion you some kind of wheelchair… or four-wheeled device or whatever. But enough of that shit. We need to have breakfast and count our supplies."

There were no protests at the suggestion of breakfast. Both Vriska and Sollux were drained from their fleeing the night before, and Tavros from the amount of blood he had lost. They made sure he drank plenty of water, and managed to force some corned beef down him, despite his protests – he was a vegetarian.

Oh lord, he was actually crying at the thought of eating another animal… Vriska was not sure whether to laugh or join him with his tears. Weakling. It was just meat. But while he protested, he was too weak to push it away or anything drastic. It was swallow or choke. And his body was not going to let him choke. After another round of protests as Sollux tried to force more down him, Vriska grabbed the tin off him, and jabbed the fork towards Tavros's face, stopping only at the last minute.

"Okay, are we going to do this the easy way, or the hard way?" Vriska said.

"Vrithka-"

"No, shut up, Sollux. Listen, Tavros. With the amount of blood you lost, if you don't eat some protein pretty soon you're going to die." she focused her intense gaze upon him. "Do you remember what I did earlier? Where I made you sit up? I can do that again."

"What are you talking about… Tavroth?"

Fear filled the boy's eyes as he remembered her powers. Not only could she make him eat the food, but… well, who knew what else she could do once she was in his mind. Admittedly less than with Sollux with his working legs, but she could make a mockery of him yet.

"Ever been told to keep your nose out of other peoples business?" Vriska spat, but her expression soon relaxed as she turned to Tavros once more. "You can chose to eat, or I can make you eat. Either way, you're going to eat the meat. If you don't, you'll die, and we'll lose. We are _not_ going to lose. You hear? So I'm going to count down from three, and you will eat this.

'Three. Two. One." Deciding to take his fate into his own hands, the boy inched forwards towards the food and took it from the fork, scrunching his face up as he swallowed. The taste, the texture, everything about it was repulsive, and he worked hard to hold back the gag reflex trying to throw it back up. But of course, Vriska was correct. Tavros needed protein or he would suffer.

Another bite… and another… BLUH.

"Thaaaat's right. Good boy! Now, do you think you can take the can yourself?" Her tone was sickeningly sweet, but exactly the right one for the job. Tavros took the tin from her and finished it in silence… although the silly faces stayed as he winced and grimaced his way through the meal. It sickened him how much stronger he felt after it… "Thank you, Tavros. Now then. Onto the wheelchair."

This took another few hours as they sourced the wheels and nails to create it, then a matter of minutes when they found a wheelie computer chair and attached a belt to it to strap him in. Currently, he could not get himself around, but others could move him. Grabbing onto the handles of the chair for support, Tavros braced himself before Vriska 'tested' it, running them down the hall with a grin on her face.

"I, uh, think it works. You can s-stop." he stammered as they reached the end of the corridor.

"Nah, this is fun. Enjoy it while you can, Tavros. Because the next time we do this, it may be when we're fleeing for our lives."

"Uh…"

* * *

><p>Your name is Feferi Peixes,<p>

You have the most noble blood possible, and are the only of your kind to possess it, although rumour has it there is a HUGEASS deep sea monster that you share it with, but you disregard these rumours. This makes you the HEIR APPARENT for global rulership, which ordinarily would place you in considerable jeopardy. HER IMPERIOUS CONDESCENSION, your aunt on your fathers side, would make an attempt on your life herself if it were not for your idol status.

And if not for this glubbing mutation, you would have BIG PLANS FOR THE THRONE. All the plans. All of them. You would use your reign to UNITE ALL BLOOD CASTES. You were told you would do this one day by your mother, but now you're a mutant, and she's dead. Oh well, you suppose NOT ALL PROPHECIES CAN COME TRUE.

As of late, a GREY HUE has been spreading across your skin, much to the alarm of your long time PLATONIC SOUL-MATE THING, and yourself. Because of this, you both attempted to HIDE FROM THE MEDIA, but they assumed that the aforementioned soul-mate had KNOCKED YOU UP REAL GOOD, so you obviously had to 'FESS UP.

Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Yes, by knocked up, I mean pregnant, not beaten up. Lolz. The song they sing earlier is 'Saltwater room' which is where the title is from. Also, I know Feferi doesn't think of Eridan in a romantic fashion, but hopefully it will all fall into place later. c:

Sorry, just filler in this! There should be more action in the next one.

Okay, so, thank you much for all the input on pairings you want to see! I'll try and get in as much of those suggested in here with at least some fluffyness. Some I think may not be possible, but I will do my best c:

So, to reviewer 'Very good', thanks for your review! Could you maybe comment on which parts are confusing so I can improve on this in the future? Thanks! ^^

And of course a big thank you to everyone for reading this! ^^


	8. Get your eye checking on

**== Be Vriska's kind of friend**

Well, the list for that is fairly short, in fact, there is only one on that list, so you are now Terezi Pyrope.

Night had long since fallen by the time Terezi awoke from her nap, which was pretty odd considering how she had only gone to sleep sometime off noon. But hey, it happened. She spent a moment rubbing her eyes, as they were dry and irritated from her sleep, a family trait it seemed. The bridge of her nose felt naked without the familiar, red-lensed sun glasses she wore, so she felt for the bedside table where they had previously lain and… darn, she knocked them on the floor.

Where was the light switch? She could have sworn there was a lamp on their bedside table! Ah, no, wait, Gamzee, the lax Australian, had used it to smash some guy over the head when he tried to break in (which had considerably shocked the rest of their team), so it was not working, per se, at the moment. Surely there would be some light coming in from the moon though if it was night? Ugh, maybe Karkat had shut the curtains. Fishing her hand down the side of the bed, she scooped up the glasses in no time and slid them on… odd, her face felt wet… perhaps she had one of her weird nightmares where she woke up crying. That was probably it, but damn was it embarrassing to do that in front of this weird duo.

"Karkat? Karkat?" Terezi hissed as she rose to her feet, waving her arms about her in case she walked into something by mistake. "Where are you?"

"What the fuck are you playing at? I'm right here, dumbass." His voice came from somewhere to her left, and so that is where she would go.

"Oh, because _you're_ such an expert at seeing in the dark?" she grinned, a nice hint of sarcasm to her voice. Having found a wall, she kept a hand resting on it, relying on the other arm to tell her when something was in the way. "Seriously, where are you? Did you close the curtains or something, dummybrain?"

"Why the fuck would I do that? Have you been smoking some of Gamzee's hair? Because he's so full of it that you could get the same kind of doping from taking any part of him." Oh Jesus Christ, she had gotten him started. Well, at least it would be kind of fun to listen to. "It would give away our position, sending up a flag of 'shoot me in the fucking eye if you would be so kind' to any douche in the vicinity, because people tend not to shut the curtains of houses they're_ not in_."

"Jeez, crabby, it was just a question. Where are you?"

"The hell do you mean?"

"I mean it's dark, numbskull, and I can't see." When her choice of words left her mouth, she heard a rustling of fabric as Karkat turned to face her, and then the swearing began.

"_Oh fuck, what the fuck happened to your fucking eyes, woman_?" She allowed herself a snort of amusement at how his voice broke mid-sentence before his words processed in her mind.

"What on earth do you mean?"

Ah, it seemed that she had forgotten Karkat's general dislike for blood, injuries and the like. When he saw such things he tended to have a minor freak-out, like he was having at that moment. So from this, she deduced that someone had injured her eyes, hence the darkness and Karkat's panicking.

Well damn, she liked being able to see. But she told herself to remain calm, and that panicking would do nothing for her.

Karkat, sensing that perhaps him panicking would not be a good idea for her, took a deep breath to calm down. He was the leader, he had to be mature, sophisticated and shit. "Terezi, it's still sunny. You should be able to see."

Okay, so perhaps she was not perfectly calm.

"Where's the bed?" she demanded, pleased when the Californian led her to it near instantly, seating her down securely. "What happened?"

"Uh… well, your eyes are completely fucking red. Like the whites, the pupils, everything. And there's blood coming from the sides… I assume it's blood anyway. You're a teal-blood, right?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, well, shit." The boy scratched the buds on either side of his temples. Unlike Terezi and Gamzee, the lumps on his head were not as irritating as theirs for reasons they would soon discover. "Well… I'm sorry I guess."

Terezi frowned, "It's not your fault. Why the hell are you apologising, crabby?"

"Because jokes about my star-sign and temperament are so original." He rolled his eyes… not that she could tell. Gamzee seemed to have a vague interest in what their star signs were, so they had all told each other what they were. Terezi was a Libra, and thus the oldest at fourteen, Gamzee a Capricorn with his birthday in a couple of months, and Karkat a Cancer, so the youngest of the twelve they had been initially put into.

"What's up, sister?" Gamzee said as he walked in, finding the other two members of Group Nine looking grim. "Hmm… that doesn't look good."

"You don't fucking say?"

"Relax my crabby brother." With a smile, Gamzee knelt before the girl, sliding off the glasses and placing them on the bedside table.

"What are you doing?" she asked, but was ignored as he inspected her eyes. Again, she repeated in a slightly more panicked tone, "What are you doing? I can't see."

"Oh, sorry, sis. I forgot." This time around, his smile was sheepish. "I'm gonna get my motherfucking eye-checking on. See what's going with your vision."

"And how do you know this?" Terezi asked. Immediately Gamzee's face closed up, before being replaced with his usual smile, which although relaxed looking had an air of fake to it. Indeed, it _was_ being faked.

"It looks like someone poured a chemical in your eyes." The swearing was dropped as he got his 'motherfucking eye-checking on' and inspected her now red orbs. "I can't say what it was, but it must have been made specifically. Probably by some chemists kid, because there's no way you wouldn't have been able to feel going blind with bleach or whatever. That was some motherfucking funky cocktail on your eyes right there. In fact…" He used his little finger to wipe up a little of the liquid running from her eye and sniffed it. Upon getting little information, he dabbed the tip of the finger on his tongue, and spat it out immediately.

"Did you just taste my blood?" Terezi said incredulously. "And they say I'm odd! He he."

"What the hell? Why would you do that?" Another freak-out from Karkat. He really needed to calm the hell down.

The Australian patted Karkat on the head. "Calm down, bro. I was just seeing if I could pick up the chemicals."

"Because obviously _ingesting_ them is a great fucking idea!" Oddly enough for someone who flipped-out so often, his voice was fairly soft and quiet, Californian accent quite relaxed and tone rarely rasied except for emphasis, so it was sometimes hard to catch the sarcasm… or the occasional lack of it.

"Nothing stood out or anything. So I won't be able to fix it, I think. The best we can do is wash your eyes and see what happens." Gamzee stood again, pulling her to her feet and towards the bathroom. "Sorry, Terezi."

"Don't be. Like I said to Karkat, It's not your fault. I mean, I guess this could be worse. If this had to happen to anyone in our group, it's best it's me." she shrugged, then paused, assuming their expressions had changed to that of curiosity before she resumed her sentence. "My mum's blind, but she's still a lawyer and works, so I know stuff about how it works and how to get around it."

That sentence made her mum seem way more badass than she actually was. In fact, she was saccharine to not only her daughter, but all of her clients and half the court room, referring to them as 'sweetie', 'dear' and 'lovely'. But of course, she reserved most of it for Terezi to be super embarrassing, showering her with affection and kisses when she returned home from work. In truth, she felt incredibly guilty for the amount of time she missed with her daughter on cases, and tried to make up for it whenever she could. Even when she was gone at work, she would have left little notes before she left about the house. Her scrawled handwriting made very little sense to her daughter, but Terezi appreciated the concern. She could be a bit of a mummy's girl at times.

Gamzee placed the toilet seat down, and then seated Terezi on it, instructing her to remain there until he got back with a cup.

"That dark horse!" she giggled to Karkat when the Aussie was out of earshot, in reference, of course, to the sudden knowledge he had on eye treatments. "D'you think he'll tell us about his dark and mysterious past?"

"It's not dark and mysterious or anything." the boy replied. "But I still won't tell you."

"Oh, go on, Karkles! And how do you even know?"

"First, don't fucking call me that. Second, no. Third, he told me, because obviously I'm better for telling these things to that some creepy girl like you."

"Aww, you're no fun!" She blindly reached out into the air before her, trying to find Karkat so she could prod him. Near instantly, he slapped her hand away, meaning she now knew where he was. And so it devolved into some kind of general batting/prodding war.

"I leave you for one motherfucking minute, and you've already become eight-year-olds. Miracles." Gamzee laughed at their antics while filling the cup he had found with water. He told Terezi to hold it to her eye, then lean her head backwards until it faced the ceiling. "So you're probably gonna get wet, sister."

And indeed, she did get wet. The cup was not of the correct size, so when she tilted her head backwards some of the water leaked from the sides onto her boiler suit. She did the exercises Gamzee instructed for each eye: to blink several times, look up, down, side to side, then look around in a circular pattern. When the water was washed down the sink for the second time, he examined her eyes once more. The redness had not been washed away in the slightest, although the blood had certainly been removed and there was no longer a teal-tint to the corners of her eyes, suggesting that most of the excess poison in them was gone, and with it, irritation to her eyes.

"Feel better, sis?"

"Yes, I do, thanks." she smiled, lightly touching her shut eyelids before putting the glasses back on. Now they would serve more like glasses to hide her blindness… funny how that had turned out really… After this, she reached out before her to find Gamzee, and upon finding him (after a few 'accidental' gropes of the front of his top) she patted him on the cheek. "Now we need to find this perpetrator and bring them to justice for the blinding of Terezi Pyrope."

"What's with the third person? Makes you sound like some kind of fucking role-player." Karkat commented.

"What a coincidence that you would say that!" she grinned and jabbed her finger in his general direction. Score. The missile met it's target and shit was begun, by which we mean another poking war. "Prime suspects: Karkat Vantas, Gamzee Makara and Vriska Serket."

"Why are we on the list? We're your team-mates. And who the hell is Vriska?"

"Ah. Poor, naïve Karkat." Terezi stroked his head as patronisingly as she could with a wicked grin on her face. "That makes you even more of a suspect. The very fact that you're not very suspicious _is_ suspicious. And as for Vriska… well, if anything bad has happened, she's probably got her fingers in it. With the number of irons she has in the fire, she's automatically a suspect." She then fully took in Karkat's question. "We go to the same school. I guess you could say we're kind of friends."

* * *

><p><strong>== So what happened to the guy in the shed?<strong>

You are now Aradia Medigo, about to unveil the guy in the shed.

By the time Aradia finally led them to the shed, the boy she had captured was still trying to escape, understandably, and had since smashed the sole window and attempted to wiggle out of it, undeterred by the small size of it and the sharp shards of glass in the frame. Because of this, his arms were laced with lacerations weeping blue blood. Crap, Aradia had forgotten about his blood caste.

In such situations, she had no reservations about beating the stuffing out of high-bloods if it meant protecting herself and her team. But from her observations of Equius, it seemed likely that he could 'flip his shit', as they say, at someone of a lower caste laying a hand on high-bloods. That meant Aradia.

Her hand paused, no longer wanting to unbolt the shed door. What if he got mad at her for locking the boy up in he shed, simply because of his higher caste that her? Again, Aradia was not weak, but she could certainly not overpower Equius. Such a thought was impossible. Madness. Especially with his weird super-strength coming out. Well, all she could really do was hope that he would see reason. And perhaps Nepeta would be able to pacify him a little.

"He should be weak enough, given his blood loss, but nevertheless, I shall deal with this. Kindly step away from the storage unit." Equius decided, and lightly pushed Aradia away, although with his strength it still felt like a shove to her. With a fluid movement, the bolt was moved back and the shed door opened. Instantly, the blue-blood inside tried to make a dash for freedom, but Equius was having none of it, grabbing his arms and dislocating one in the process.

"_Shit man_!" the boy screamed, his other arm reaching around to hesitantly touch the point of dislocation. It seemed that he had forgotten that Group Seven contained Equius Zahhak. Or as he was known by the other groups, 'that guy what's super-strong and shiz'. "Let me go, goddamn it!"

"A high-blood as yourself should not be using such lewd language." Equius frowned, and behind him Nepeta concealed a giggle of amusement. Ordinarily it was her on the receiving end of the 'poor language for someone of your blood caste' scolding, so it was refreshing seeing it placed on someone else.

"Seriously! Let me go, or I'll fucking scream, and your team will go down with mine when the others find us!" The desperate glint in the boy's eyes spoke volumes. Mainly at how he clearly was not going to do such a thing, as it would mean near certain death for him. It was risky, but at that particular point in time, his best option seemed to be remaining on Group Sevens better side. But if his plan was to threaten them with death… well… he could have gotten off to a better start.

"Surely he should have passed out by now with all that blood he's lost." Nepeta commented casually, noting the dark-blue clinging stubbornly to the boys clothes.

"Shut up, bitch! Just bec-" However he did not get any further, as Equius had punched him in the face so hard he fell instantly unconscious. So he did place Nepeta higher up than his high-blood-low-blood rubbish then, Aradia was pleased to notice.

Equius muttered, "What a disgusting, pathetic excuse of a blue blood." Before hoisting him up by the armpits then slinging him over his shoulders in a fireman's lift. "I shall go dispose of him somewhere. I should not be too long."

The Scotsman left, and so the two girls headed back inside. On her way to the final scraps of meat, Nepeta noticed the weapons Aradia had picked up, and brought it to her attention.

"What's with the bow?"

"Oh, I got it for Equius because he, euh, he does not have a weapon. But I realised after that he does not really need one." They both took a break to indulge in a slightly bitchy snort of amusement before Aradia picked up the bow in her hands.

Unlike that of most high-blood of the same age, her palms were rough and calloused from her training. She was under no illusion of what her mother had done to get to such a high position in T.R.O.L.L: having had to sleep with many of those of high places in the organisation, creating many disgruntled wives and children who would quite happily take it out on her daughter. Aradia could hardly blame them. She herself would have been angry, but that did not mean she would allow herself to be walked all over in return for actions her mother did to ensure her family lived a comfortable life. It was not nice, but hey, in such economic climates good people did bad things. This resulted in her training and fighting a lot in her free time, so her hands were not smooth in the least. Besides, she wanted to become an archaeologist, so it wasn't like her hands would stay soft for long if she took up upon such a career.

The bow pulled back smoothly, creating a satisfying 'twang!' as her fingers left the cord and it settled back into its original shape. Had she fired an arrow, it was likely that it would have missed the target, as her aim was off, but whatever. It was not as if _she_ wanted to use the bow in the first place.

"Just so you know before-hand, he has this weird thing about bows."

"And by weird, you mean?" Her eyebrow raised slightly, expecting something really odd given that it was Equius they were discussing.

"Oh no! Not something _really_ weird! Just… well. He's always wanted to use a bow and arrow, not sure why, but he's too strong fur them, so they snap. Actually, when he was really little, I think, his mum taught him how to use one. She died before they adopted me." As she spoke, cat puns aside and knees clutched to her chest, a maturity befell her features, driving home the fact that in reality, she was four months older than him, and she merely looked (and okay, usually acted) like the younger sibling. "So that's purrobably why he likes using bows. To honour her memory, and be like her or something."

"That is sweet of him."

Like Aradia, all of Nepeta's skin was grey now, the whites to the eyes yellow, and the teeth all sharp and odd. Indeed, the only thing left for a complete transformation were for those weird bumps on their heads to burst and turn into whatever strange forms awaited them. But whatever, enough bluffing and beating around the bush, when everyone in Group Seven knew full well what these lumps on the head were! They were the buds of what would become horns. What the horns looked like, even Aradia did not know. But from what she had heard, the shape varied from mutant to mutant. She hoped hers looked pretty damn awesome to make up for the rubbish she had had to endure on behalf of the mutation. It was the least her body could do, really.

It was at this particular trail of thought, that Nepeta suddenly ripped the hat from her head, and bit down onto it, preventing her from screaming and giving their positions away… as if the blue-blood boy had not already essentially done that. Green tinted tears beaded in the corners of her eyes as she clutched at her temples. Whatever was causing her such pain must have been exceptionally bad to have such an effect on the usually strong Nepeta. It pained Aradia watching her friend in such pain, but there was little more she could do than lie her down in a more comfortable position on the floor and wait for Equius to return. Perhaps he knew what was going on, or at the very least comfort her better… unless this was due to the budding horns coming through, in which case there was little he could do. But doubtless, having her adoptive brother there with her would bring Nepeta the comfort she needed.

Prepared to offer some comfort to the girl, Aradia began, "Nepeta-"

And speak of the devil, Equius walked into the room, shutting the door softly before turning to see Aradia bent over a flinching Nepeta, curled up on the floor and groaning in pain. Instantly, his mind shifted to the worse case scenario, and he yanked Aradia upwards by her wrist, making her too cry out.

"_Lâcher moi maintenant, brute_!" she cried and, doing the first thing that came to mind, slapped him around the face with her spare hand. To her surprise, he indeed let her go, leaving her to fall into an awkward pile on the floor while he hovered over Nepeta, muttering soothing words in his Scottish lilt as he lifted her up and carried her upstairs. In truth, she suspected that his letting go of her had more to do with exactly where Nepeta was clinging at, as opposed to her words which he probably could not even understand. Or maybe, he had understood that it would be pointless for the French girl to try and hurt Nepeta, what with them being in the same team, and Nepeta having such a hulking brother to beat people up for her when she could not.

Well, what to do?

Aradia certainly did not want to go face Equius again. She knew full well that he would not apologise for his treatment of her, and even if (by some miracle of a Gamzee sized proportion) he did, she would not accept it. He was a creep. Simple as. And she should not have to deal with it. She wanted to go home, to never have to look upon these people's weird grey faces again… but there was little she could do about that.

With a sigh, she thought back to the group she had wanted to be on. Group Eight. If she could have somehow swapped places with Vriska, everything would have been fine. Poor Tavros would not be bullied by the Brit (as he doubtless was being this second), Equius would get his high-blooded team-mate, Nepeta, well, Aradia would miss the high-spirited girl, but sacrifices must be made, and she was certain that Nepeta could look out for herself. And finally, as sappy and sad as it was, the French girl had found herself with a little (big) crush on Sollux Captor. Judging by the goofy smile he had given her but a few days earlier, he may well have a thing for her to. He was in Group Eight, and so it would have been perfect. Aradia, Sollux and Tavros. Even thinking about his face made her feel better, complete with a slightly raised heartbeat and a flushed face. Wow she needed to get a life, but damn it, she was happy, so like _hell_ she would. If crushing on Sollux was stopping the fear and anger from settling in from this weird new world she had been dunked in, then she was fine with these feelings staying.

Okay, so how about she practiced with the whip? She kind of wanted to check up on Nepeta still, but she was in good hands, so never mind. Aradia took position in the middle of the room, feet apart and knees bent a little to ensure maximum balance. Flicking the handle, the body of the whip shot forth and bent in on itself, creating a loud CRACK that filled the room. The French girl grinned at this. It was such a familiar sound from her training that it was somewhat of a comfort.

Right. First things first. She needed to get used the feel of this particular whip. It was different to the one she had at home so if she were to fully utilise it as an _effective_ weapon, she needed to work with it. SNAP! She aimed at a bottle by the sink, and she missed. Wow, she was lucky when she managed to hit the blue-bloods expanse of pipe in the heat of a fight… not that he would have been much of an opponent to her even without it. SNAP! The bottle again, and this time she managed to hit it, the end of the whip wrapping around the neck. With a tug it was pulled towards her and she caught it with ease. A long empty beer bottle… interesting. At least, she guessed it was beer, as beer was almost the same word as bière (beer in French) and the brand logo was the same.

CRACK! The tip of the whip hit an inch to the left of the dot she was aiming it. Not bad, but improvement needed. SNAP! Arg, almost there. SNAP! Better. SNAP CRACK SNAP! Ha! That boy hadn't stood a chance against these 'mad skillz'. Oh no. Not in the least. SNAP SNAP CRACK!

"The amount of noise you're producing is excessively irritating. You would do well to cease making it, gutterblood." Shit. Aradia had not heard Equius coming down the stairs. What to do? She couldn't really think of a reply containing suitable amounts of wit and irony… well not in English at any rate. Without realising it, she had begun to stare at him, panting slightly with excitement from her training still lighting her eyes.

What was with his expression… ah, damn. As a high-blood he was probably weird about the showing of skin, and she had long since shrugged off the top half of her jumpsuit and tied the sleeves around her waist so only her black vest covered her top half, showing off her grey shoulders and arms.

Oh gross, he had begun to sweat.

"I would prefer it if you used my name, connard." she replied, irritated at herself for not coming up with a better reply.

"Why should I humour you in such a fashion? Your blood is so low it doesn't even belong in sewage."

Oh man, she really wanted to cut him a scar across his face, but no. She would be civilised and decent… all traits that a 'low-blood' was supposed to lack in. Ha. That would show him… although her fingers were still clenched on her whip's handle in anticipation for conflict.

"But… I guess I owe you… an apology…" His voice went near silent, and immediately Aradia saw what was going on.

"Nepeta has forced you to appologise, has she not?"

"You honestly think someone of lower-blood could order me to do such a thing?"

"Yes. Yes I do. Because despite the, euh, differences in hair, eye, skin and blood colour, we are all human beings. So we are all equal."

"Is it common for people of your country to initiate revolutions against nobility, or is it merely a select few?" he asked. For a few seconds she merely gaped at him. Seriously? Was he honestly bringing up the French revolution? What sort of pitiful excuse for a human was he? Oh god, the urge to inflict serious pain upon him was getting stronger by the minute, but she still doubted she could do much. Unlike the other blue-blood, Eqiuis actually had a clue about combat – she had seen him in action when some creep slapped her butt at the start (who even does that?) – so she knew full well she would not to much damage. But hey, it was the thought that counts, right? Right? "Uh… without wanting to derail the topic at hand, is that a bow and arrow?"

Oh. She had forgotten about the bow.

**== Don't give it to him don't give it to him don't give it to him**

You were not going to give it to him anyway! Mon Dieu, have a little faith!

Aradia nodded, slowly picking the bow and quiver up in her hands. "Yes. They are. But you cannot have them. They are mine."

"Ah." Oh man, what was with all his disgusting sweating? "Well then."

"Yeah. Well then." Her eyes were slightly narrowed, and yet deep down, she still wanted to change his attitude rather than let him be a jerkass forever. Without thinking, her mouth began to spout words. "Although, if you, euh, find it within you to apologise to me as if I am an equal to you, then… et bien, I would perhaps be willing to let you use it. That is, to give it to you."

Without another word, Equius turned and headed back upstairs. That would give him food for thought, she decided, and placed both the whip and the bow and arrow down on the floor. It was now time for her practice in combat, as she needed to keep agile if she were to be any use in a fight, and this training was near silent. Although irritating Equius would be ridiculously fun, she genuinely did not want to disturb poor Nepeta.

She jabbed her fists and feet through the air in a series of fluid movements, remembering the best moves for overpowering those bigger than her (Aradia was not particularly large, bless her) and those for ending fights as quickly as possible.

'_A hair bobble would be helpful_.' she thought to herself, and settled for trying her hair in a vaguely high pony-tail with a piece of string she found lying around. It soon slipped back down to the nape of her neck, which was irritating, because with hair as thick as hers the back of her neck soon got pretty sweaty after any sort of exercise. At times, she wondered if cutting it all off would be a good idea, but she had been growing it since 'the incident' when she was four (she'd hacked all her hair off) and so it would be weird to be free of its weight. Maybe one day… if she survived this.

* * *

><p><strong>== Be Vriska,<strong>

You are now Vriska Serket.

Vriska's eyes snapped open after her particularly violent nightmare. Now awake, she could remember little of it, other than vast amounts of candy-red blood. Many had such nightmares, and scientists had decided it was because the human race had not yet gotten used to their change in blood colours, and so until the instincts of the mind caught up, there would continue to be a lingering fear at large amounts of red. Sitting up, she massaged the sides of her temples, the buds aching maddeningly, which could well have woken her up in the first place... not that she was complaining after that particular dream. Following a series of cat-like stretches, she padded down the corridor towards the bathroom.

"Shit." she announced to no one in particular. And then, upon deciding it was not enough, added, "_Lousy goddamn stupid puberty. UGH_!"

Like her mother had told her to expect, she had finally begun her periods on the exact day of her fourteenth birthday. Great. Quickly, she gave the room a scan for anything she could use to catch the flow. Ugh, she should have been expecting this really! Mutant or not, chances were she would still have a menstrual cycle. There were plenty of sanitary products in the shop they had raided, but she had barely glanced at them, bigger thoughts on her mind that the date she would start her periods. And she doubted either of the boys had brought some on her behalf. But as luck would have it, the girl in Group Two had brought several boxes of tampons with her. Well, Vriska had been hoping to start out with sanitary towels, but hey, beggars can't be choosers...

Later, sliding back into bed, she noticed Tavros's curious eyes upon hers, her getting up probably having jolted him awake. The moonlight on his face was kind, making his features look oddly cute... Ugh, stupid hormones.

"You okay?" Evidently he had picked up upon her slight levels of distress.

In an understandably bad mood, she snapped in response, "Be glad you're not a girl."

It shut him up straight away, his cheeks flaring orange. They soon fell back to sleep for a couple more hours, not noticing Sollux's smirk of amusement. When they woke once more at a respectable half ten, Sollux decided to take a nap as he had had difficulty getting to sleep while Vriska had been keeping watch.

"Hey, hotrod." Vriska said to Tavros. "Guess what."

"Uh... what?" They both kept hushed tones, not wanting to wake Sollux up, lest they face his wrath, which he had made very clear.

"No, you've got to guess. That's why I said 'guess what' rather than 'say what, then I'll tell you', so _guess_."

"Uh..." Other than mention the event that occurred earlier that morning, which he did not particularly want to since she had seemed fairly agitated, he hadn't a clue. "You found a grey hair?"

"Hey!" She cuffed him around the head at his cheeky grin, secretly pleased that he had perked up a little since the day before. Although there was still a sickly look to his face and his previously tanned skin was pale and sickly, he seemed to be staying strong. Taking pity on him, she sighed, "Since you're so useless, I'll just tell you. It's my birthday today! I'm fourteen now."

"Happy birthday!" Tavros smiled. "You're, uh, quite a bit older than me then."

"When's yours?"

"May." he replied, to which she nodded. She had expected him to be an August baby, but whatever. "Well, that's not, uh, loads older really, I guess."

Suddenly, from the distance, a scream was heard, echoing around the dry, still air with little resistance. It was different from the other screams they had heard so far; not like a scream of victory or one of a war cry, not like Tavros's scream when his back broke... this was the cry of someone being murdered. They each wondered whom it could be. One of the twelve mutants they had been a part of, just a few days ago, as they were lowered into the artificial village? Perhaps one of the other mutants, or someone they considered a friend? Mainly, they hoped it was not someone they knew.

There was little they could do about it, however, so they lowered their eyes in respect and fell silent. Another group were lost. Sollux remained asleep throughout it somehow, and frankly, they could not be bothered to wake him. They would tell him when he awoke.

The playful mood was promptly killed, so instead Vriska ordered, "Sit up. I need to change your bandages."

Thankfully, the large gash on Tavros's back had since stopped bleeding, although initially when they had first removed the shard of glass from his back, it had bled profusely, requiring a change in the bindings every hour or so. Now, it was just a question of keeping the wound clean and free from infection. As for his paralysis, there was nothing they could do about that.

"Actually, do you think it would be a good idea just to air it for a while?" Vriska asked as she unwound wrappings from the small of his back. She then remembered that he was biting down on a bit of fabric to stop him from crying out as she jostled and prodded at the wound. "Here." She helped him lie down on his front, then stood up, the bed shifting from the sudden lack of weight. "Well, I'm gonna go wash your bandages. I'll bring back the clean ones while I'm at it. Try not to get into too much trouble while I'm gone."

Despite being stained a permanent brownish-orange, Vriska scrubbed the blood off the bandages the best she could. In truth, she hadn't a clue on how to _treat_ wounds, let alone heal them, because she tended to be the one to inflict them. At this line of thought, she wrung the fabric viciously between her hands, squeezing as much water from it as possible before unplugging the sink and letting the warm water drain out.

Water sizzled and hissed as it evaporated from the bandage hung over the radiator. That was another nice point of this house. It had central heating that was actually on, so they had been able to do a small amount of washing, each washing one item of clothing at a time, so that they would not be caught without most of their clothes. Because besides from being disadvantageous if the house was stormed by that of an enemy group, it would also be super embarrassing.

She scooped up the bandage and placed it on the bed, reminding him that she was going to leave the wound to air for a while, so until then he would have to sit with his top half bare. He then asked her to wake up Sollux, which was now the unspoken assumption that he needed the loo. The geek had by now made a full recovery, and like Vriska, was able to carry the smaller Tavros around for short periods of time, although not as long as her.

Once the deed had been done, Sollux dozed back off to sleep again in the bed at the far end of the room. The previous group had done a small amount of furniture rearrangement, and so there was space for three people to sleep at a time in the master bedroom.

Lord knows why they did it. Surely it was merely common sense to have someone keeping watch at all times, Vriska decided. Either way, it worked for them. Tavros took the double bed, with whomever not on guard duty sharing it with him. The second bed tended to be where those who had gotten little sleep while keeping watch could catch up on some z's. Another unspoken rule they had adopted was that someone should remain with Tavros at all time, due to his weakened state.

With the new house came new escape plans. They would use the nearest escape route (namely, windows) unless of course it was being blocked by an intuder. If not, Sollux would carry two packs filled with food and essentials - his and Tavros's - while Vriska, as the strongest, would carry her own rucksack, as well as carry Tavros. If, however the way to safety was blocked, then Sollux and Vriska would do their best to fend them off, protecting their disabled team mate. If worse came to the worst and an intruder did break through their guard, then Tavros had his jousting dagger... although if it came to this, honestly, they did not have much hope for their long term survival, because if Vriska and Sollux could not hold them off, then how on earth could Tavros of all people stop them?

After a little while longer, Vriska ordered him to sit up again, and began to wind the clean fabric on, a process which took a good ten minutes to do properly. The tufty haired kid winced as she continued to wrap the bandages around his torso. At this time, he could do little more than pull faces at the pain, until Vriska, actually sensing this vast irritation, said, "Tell me about your family."

"Oh, uh, well, I'm an only child. I live with my mom, dad and abuela... I, uh, mean grandma." When he stopped, she reached her hand forwards to where he could see it with a gesture that clearly meant 'go on'. "Uh… so my dad's an artist, and my mom works for some business company, doing, uh, paperwork or something. My mum makes most of the money generally, but my dad gets big commissions now and again, which is, uh, good. My grandma teaches Spanish at one of the local primary schools, but she doesn't get paid for that, because it's volunteer work."

"Volunteer work?"

"Where you do work for nothing."

"Surely people of your cast can't afford to do that." she frowned, genuinely curious and not just looking to insult him, which he picked up upon, and laughed, jostling his bandages and making him wince again.

"She's retired, so she already gets a bit of a pension. But she's not in it for the money. She's doing it so that there's less ignorance towards the Hispanic community, so that we can all talk to each other. To show them that we're not all big and scary or anything." On this topic, he lost his stumbling pattern of speech and grew more confident. He was proud of his family. Proud to be related to these low-bloods… and it shocked Vriska a little, made her jealous of him. How dare he, a lowly brown-blood, be proud of who he was, and who he was related to! Why should he have a better life than her, a cerulean-blood? "So, uh, what's your family like?"

"I have a bratty half-sister, a mum, and a dad who abandoned me before I was even born." she spat, tightening the bandages with a quick jerk that made him inhale sharply in pain. "But enough about me! You seem to be doing much better."

For reasons unknown to him, she lightly ran her finger up his bare spine, enjoying his shiver before handing him his top back. He quickly slid it on and tried (very unsuccessfully) to suppress the orange blush threatening to show on his face. Perhaps Vriska was enjoying the control she had over his poor emotions, or maybe she just liked messing with him… Both, Tavros decided in the end.

"Uh… t-thanks on behalf of my, uh, immune system?" he replied, stumbling over words again after Vriska's little stunt. Rather than look at her face, for he had turned back around to face her, he studied the grey on his arms intensely. The last thing he needed was to see the smirk twisting her pretty features.

Odd. The rate the grey was spreading over him was incredibly fast. Not four days had passed since they went into the underground village, and already the spread of grey was at the same rate as one would expect in four months. The blotches had mainly spread over his face and torso, with almost complete grey coverage there. The whites to his eyes were the vivid yellow that had come to be associated with the mutation, with the buds of his horns speeding into existence. As of yet, they had not caused him any problems, but within the next few hours he would begin to get the headaches that came with their growth. And as for his teeth, well, just that morning he had bitten the side of his mouth with his new, wickedly sharp canines. The rest of his teeth were getting pretty sharp as well, however that worked, with a vicious toothache plaguing him throughout the previous night, making him sleep particularly and unusually lightly.

It took a while for him to finally doze off, but when Tavros Nitram got to sleep, boy did he sleep heavily. You could probably fly an entire fleet of jet planes over his bedroom and not rouse him in the slightest. This, he did not mind, as he was prone to particularly weird and enjoyable dreams. It was an in-joke in his family how he preferred the dream-world to reality. But the toothache had kept him on the very borders of sleep, so the mere movement of Vriska going to the bathroom had woken him up. And yes, he was worried for her when she returned looking like she had seen a ghost… but he'd honestly not expected the problem to be periods. He could do nothing about that really. That was not a subject that guys liked to discuss. Like, whoa, no thanks.

From the far wall of the room, Sollux sat up and yawned. At first he just had a sleepy expression on, which one would expect having just woken up, but it soon turned sharp as his head whirled round to face Vriska.

"Hey, Vrithka, we need to talk."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** RIGHT. First things first. THANK YOU SO MUCH for over fifty reviews! Oh my gosh, just, everyone here consider themselves bear hugged! This is also at over 120 pages long, which is cool since I haven't even begun the main body of this fic yet c:

Okay, so for this chapter, so many POV switches, sorry for that! And all that swearing by Group Nine, honestly! They need to wash their mouthes out! XD

Also, sorry for the lateness of this update, I went on holiday, but I got ill for some of it, so I caught up on my writing a little. But hopefully I make up for it with the longest chapter yet? :3

And had another look at the troll personality meme thing, turns out I was telling everyone the wrong results! I am apparently most like Feferi, oops! I did it last a while ago, so I forgot that!

Also finally, so yes. I have no issues really with talking about periods, which is unfortunate since many of my friends are guys! But I get very flustered by sexual scenes, so expect many period jokes, but no explicitly steamy stuff, sorry! Worse end of the stick there… x3

And thank you everyone for the massive support ^^


	9. Do it Optic blasts

"Excuse me?" Vriska could only imagine what Sollux would want with her, and her guess was not only a good one, but accurate. Yet he was not angry as she would have expected, but rather apprehensive and very confused.

"You thaid that you have… weird powerth?"

"What?" she frowned, mock puzzled at his words. Okay, so she knew exactly what he meant, but delaying it was kind of fun. His expression was turning a little irritated as he too knew what she meant. But in addition to the teasing, there was also a part of her that did not want to accept it just yet, and she felt that not saying it to the full extent out loud would make it fake for just a while longer.

"You know what I mean. You thaid yesterday while feeding Tavroth-"

"Whoa, you, uh, make me sound completely incapable there."

"Shush!" both Vriska and Sollux said to the boy.

"Ath I wath thaying. You thaid that you could make him thit up. And yeth, I mean where one parkth their rear on a chair. That thit," They all allowed themselves a brief island of amusement from this Group Eight in-joke, before Sollux got back to the matter at hand. "Tho… what did you mean by that?"

Vriska beckoned Sollux over to the sit on the main bed, and so they formed an odd group, with Vriska and Tavros lying side by side, leaning on the headboard, and Sollux facing Vriska, leaning on the back-board of the four-poster.

"Okay, so yesterday, I lied."

"What?" Tavros gasped, annoyed and insulted that she had tricked him into eating the meat… but he still could not find it within him to hate her for it, or even any feelings near hate. It was the vegetarian in him, his mother would have teased, making him act so soppy.

"I couldn't make him sit up or anything at that time _in particular_. I just, I don't get it! It's hard to control," Vriska leant her head back further, staring up at the ceiling as if it would magically give her the answer to the problems she had been having. Then to calm herself down a little, she swept the main body of her hair over one shoulder and began to fiddle with the ends of it. "When I was really upset, or stressed or something, it was like… something would kind of click in my head, instructing me to do certain things."

She then slid her hands into her hair, cradling her head, and curled into a foetal position, her mane of hair hiding her face. It was stressful for her, these weird powers, despite how useful they could be because they were simply so alien to her.

Tavros slowly rested his hand on her shoulder, knowing that if he moved too fast he could startle her. At the moment she was an injured young animal: scared, jumpy and likely to lash out at any time. Indeed, when his palm made contact with her shoulder, she flinched and turned to look at him.

"Hey. It'll be fine." he smiled, reassuring her the best her could. Her cheeks turned a shade bluer as she uncurled, sitting with her legs out on the bed once more.

"Ugh, whatever. So yeah. It was first when that bloody woman, when we were getting our items checked, tried to bin most of my dice. I got pissed off at her and suddenly something in my head made me look her in the eyes and tell her what to do. So I did and it actually worked, and I don't know why, it's just, bluh," she looked up at Sollux and stared him in the eye. "See, if I tell you to do something now, it doesn't work. Sollux, stand up."

Suddenly, something in his eyes changed as his face turned slack and his eyes widened. As if possessed, his body swiveled from its position on the bed and indeed he stood up. At first, Vriska began to have in internal panic attack. Would she never be able to look people in the eye again without possessing them? Oh god, no! But then his arms raised in the air and he made loud groaning sounds like a zombie.

"Urrrrg, brainth…" he moaned.

"Oh fuck you, Sollux." she said, rolling her eyes with a small smile on her face.

"Ath you wish, my lady." Then with a smirk he joined her on the bed, straddling her and reaching for the front of her boiler suit with a suitably rapt expression.

"Jesus Christ, Sollux!" She kneed him in the groin and shoved him away, but was laughing none the less. "You men. You just can't help yourselves around me!"

"I believe I was pothethed and under your control."

"Yeah yeah. I think that really, my overriding womanly scent must have been affecting your poor mind," she sighed in mock exasperation, quoting the lines Sollux had used on her a few days ago. They allowed a smirk at one another before the conversation was steered to more serious matters once more. "So yeah. That's all there is to say on that matter really."

"Well, I'm thorry, but I'm not going to believe thith until I thee it."

Any humour in the atmosphere left as Vriska's expression turned stony. With an ironic smile she said, "Of course, because I'd totally lie about something like that!"

"Well come on. Being able to control peopleth mindth? It'th pretty far-fetched."

"You honestly think I'd look so disturbed about something I was lying about? Hell, that Tavros would freak out over what I was saying and eat meat despite his vegetarianism if he hadn't seen it and it was fake? Seriously?"

"Could be," Like Vriska, Sollux too turned serious and cold. "But until you prove it, I'm gonna athume you're lying. Fuck, maybe Tavroth ith in on it too."

"Tavros? Seriously? Come on, make believe time is over now," Vriska leant over a little and cupped Tavros's face in her hands, turning it to face to Sollux and ignoring how his cheeks were warming under her touch. "Look at this face. Could this possibly lie to you? Or anyone for that matter?"

"Get off," Tavros wriggled free of her grip, embarrassed at the attention. "And, uh, I can lie."

"Oh? Go on then. Lie for me, wriggler," Gosh, her teeth were sharp, he thought as her grin widened, making her look rather vampire like.

"Well, uh, anything I say, you're gonna know that it's a lie."

"Hmm, well pointed out."

"Vrithka, come on. Leave him out of thith."

Her gaze was sharp. "You didn't. Anyway. How about this. Tell me two truths and a lie. If you can smuggle the lie past me, then you win and you're apeshit banana's at lying. But if I pick out your lie then… well, you're _not_ apeshit banana's at lying. Simple. I'll give you a minute to think them up."

And so the thinking began.

"Okay then… uh, so," Tavros composed himself before starting, "I have a cat, I have a computer and I don't have a bedroom door."

"You don't have a cat," Vriska said after a few seconds of thought, solving it. "It was a clever idea to use mundane things though. Very sneaky. I'll make a con artist of you yet. But jeez! You don't have a bedroom door?"

"Well, they removed it before I… uh, left because we were redecorating. Anyway, how, uh, how did you know so fast?"

"That midget Scottish girl's hat was covered in cat's hairs, and when she introduced herself to you, you sneezed and apologised, telling her it was from your allergies."

"You remembered that?"

"Hey, don't go all sentimental on me. I just remember pointless things. Anyway, what the hell? We've completely derailed here! Sollux! I'll prove to you that I can do this," She turned to him and stared him in the eyes, fingers at her temples and a lull to her voice, "Stand up."

But he did not stand.

"Stand up."

Again, he did not stand.

Frustrated at her lack of control, she broke off eye contact, shut her eyes and focused, searching deep inside her. Then suddenly, as if it made sense, her lids slowly opened once more as she calmly looked him in the eye.

"Stand up."

Sollux stood up. With a malicious grin, she instructed, "Fall over," And he fell. "Slap yourself around the face," And he slapped himself around the face. "Oh no, Sollux, looks like you were wrong."

"V-Vriska. Stop this."

She turned, not breaking off the connection, to see a horrified Tavros. "What? I'm not going to kill him. Just mess him about a bit. He insulted you as well!"

"Uh, yeah, I guess, but… just beating him up isn't the answer." He did not once look in her eyes, terrified that she might take it out on him as well.

"Any other zen quotes you'd like to shoot at me, or are we done here?" she snapped. "This is lame anyway."

Breaking off control, she turned once more to stare at the ceiling. It was then when a strange, ambient voice filled the room. They sounded like a woman, but it was hard to tell just what gender it was.

"This is an announcement from the head of this facility. So far groups Two, Five and Six have been annihilated, leaving seven groups for four spaces. A little under half of you will have to die yet before this is over.

'Information: each of the remaining groups must have killed another group before the end of this confinement. There will be no exception to this rule. If one of the final four groups has not killed another group, then they themselves will be eliminated. So far only groups Eight and Ten have killed. That is all."

From the inside of the observatory, Feferi pulled a grim expression, one matched by Vriska's.

"It would be that creep Eridan who murders someone, wouldn't it?" she chuckled. "Knew it."

Sollux, having finished taking in the words of the woman, heaved himself back up to his feet before settling back down again on the bed with a sigh.

"What? Is that it?" Vriska said. "You're not going to try and spear me or anything?"

"Nah," For Sollux knew that appeasing her violent side would not only end with his butt sorely kicked, but also that Vriska would get more out of him fighting back than if he remained dull. "Tho, then it ithn't too hard to believe that… well I gueth we owe you an apology Tavroth. I have noticed you find it hard to fall to thleep, tho I gueth, maybe the intruder hath weird mind control powerth ath well."

"Yeah, I had a hunch about that as well." Vriska admitted, much to the chagrin of her team mates.

"You mean you jutht let me be a complete dick to him for no reathon?" Sollux did not get overly theatrical with his emotions often, for that was Vriska's zone, but occationally it was needed. "You're a huge bitch."

"I didn't want to accept my own problems, dickhead, so I was keeping quiet about it." she pouted.

For a while Tavros felt a sense of accomplishment while Sollux glared at Vriska from behind his glasses, but he then stopped and continued the conversation, "Tho where I was going with thith ith that I think I may be getting thomething thimilar."

"And you still had the gall to accuse me of lying? Wow, thanks. Well I won't believe you, then, until you show us." she pouted, having soon forgotten the woman's words. They were relatively safe now, having murdered someone already. If they lay low they could get through relatively easy. It was a nasty business and a terrible thing to feel so relieved about, but in their situation, Vriska merely wanted to live.

"Thith could actually be dangerouth," Sollux warned, but Vriska was dismissive, telling him that as long as he did whatever this was in the opposite direction to them, they would be fine. And so he stood, and took off his dual-coloured glasses, holding them loosely by a handle with his eyes screwed shut. "Tho if you all die, or whatever, it'th your fault, Vrithka."

Turning his head towards a wall where a rather atrocious painting hung, he then opened his eyes, and two beams of energy shot out from them, one red, one blue. While this was going on, Vriska was vaguely aware of her mouth making noises like 'Holy fuck!' and 'Shit man, what the actual hell, Jesus!', but they were hardly conscious and she barely noticed them, in awe of the power this mustard blooded boy. The energy flowing from his eyes looked almost like jets of brightly coloured water, giving off a collectively purple coloured light that one could probably read by.

The painting caught fire and burned rapidly, giving off a thick, noxious, black smoke.

"Aw thit, I forgot about that. And yeth, I mean the expletive," The glasses went back on as quickly as possible as he left to get water. "Come on, Vrithka. We need to put thith out."

"See, Sollux? This is why we can't have nice things!" Vriska cried jokingly and also rushed to the bathroom for some water to put it out.

The smoke, dark, heavy and entirely visible began to sink down into the room, making Tavros choke and cough. But he could not move his legs, so he could not leave the room.

"Vriska! Shit, ugh…" he called. "Vriska!"

But he then descended into a mass of coughing and spluttering as the main body of smoke reached his face. Still there was no response, so he reached out to his side to grab the wheelie-chair and try to get onto it, yet he had no such luck, the chair scooting away from his fingers due to a misplaced lunge, and shooting across the room, leaving him in an awkward pile upon the floor. But he did not give up, because who knew how long it would take Sollux and Vriska to find a receptacle for water? They were incapable enough on their own, but with their powers combined, shit would undoubtedly go down.

The best he could come up with as a response to moving without legs (lousy goddamn stupid Vriska) was to do a strange, improvised army crawl across the floor. But the bloody painting was still spewing smoke into the room, the energy in Sollux's optic blasts, as they would later call them, was somehow allowing the combustion to last far longer than it should.

"Vriska…" he croaked, before the smoke descended further down the level of the wooden flooring, and Tavros blacked out.

* * *

><p><strong>== PSYCHE. Be Feferi before the murder<strong>

You are now Feferi Peixes on the night before the murder, where we left off before.

The water hung pleasingly around her body like a duvet, and it was such a comfort that Feferi lay at the bottom of the pool for a couple of hours. Had she known before that she had such an affinity for the water – being able to breathe in it nonetheless – she would have gotten a pool installed at their flat, or at least organized a holiday to some remote island so they could go diving. Being a princess of sorts came with such privileges. Actually, wait... a horrifying thought flittered through her mind: what if her gills were only adapted for freshwater? One of her dreams upon discovering this mutation a day or so ago was to explore some of the sunken cities of old, all encased within saltwater. But hey, she should be content with having gills and lungs to start with! So enough of this moping!

Outside, nothing was visible due to night falling, turning the vast windows into mirrors, all showing the same slightly plump girl with a mess of dark hair climbing out of a pool. The plump girl, of course, being Feferi. Now outside the warm water, she was freezing and soon realized her error at not thinking of towels and the like. She couldn't very well put on her dry clothes on top of the wet ones, that would just be plain stupid, so instead she scuttled into the nearest bedroom and wrapped herself up in some spare bed sheets until she was dry. Next time, she would make sure to bring a towel... if there were any around here that is.

Because of this, she decided to spend the next couple of minutes seeing if she could find any of these elusive towels, as she could see herself spending much time in the pool sized bath getting used to her gills. Also because she did not want to face a certain teammate quite yet. A bit of planning was needed before such a route would be taken.

After searching through countless airing cupboards and closets, she still could not locate any towels, although she found many more bed sheets. Honestly, who built a pool, but forgot towels? Sheesh. In fact, at first it had enraged her so much that she had taken her trident and shredded several of the bed sheets in a fit of rage, not to mention a few vases. One of the walls in a spare bedroom had been gouged, even. A credit to whomever had made the trident that it could cut plaster.

Then again, Feferi scolded herself, she had been given a safe house for Group Ten, with food and the near guarantee that they would not be killed. A lack in towels was hardly something to be complaining about. Imagine how it was for all those other poor people; having to hide the best they could and hunt or scavenge for food, even! Some had died already, and others inured beyond hope of repair. They, however, were living on the lap of luxury. Yeah, she definitely had no right to complain about a mere lack of towels.

Well, it was pretty clear that Feferi had no hope of finding these towels, so with a sigh, she conceded defeat and placed a small pile of spare bed sheets in the bathroom with the pool-bath. Although she dreaded it, she thought, 'Well that's all I can do here. Time to go face the music.'

As silently as possible, she crept up the spiral staircase, deciding upon which tactics to get Eridan to forgive her... not that she had really done anything wrong in her opinion. If showing people their amazing hidden skills was wrong, then hell, she did not want to be right. Feferi knocked their code knock on the wood of the trapdoor and Kanaya swung it open, silhouetted into a dark shape by the moon overhead, making her only recognizable by her characteristic tufted hairstyle.

"I was wondering where you had gotten to, Feferi. I checked the pool but you were not there." Kanaya said.

"Oh," Feferi whispered, seeing that the hipster was asleep and not wanting to wake him... yet. "Sorry! I went to go dry off, but I couldn't find any coddamn towels, so I had to improvise."

"Yes, I saw the trail of footsteps," Kanaya smiled. "So that is what I assumed you were doing. Anyway, now that you have joined us, you can take your shift. Today, you have got the first half of the night, and I the second. Well, I am going to sleep now. Goodnight."

The Russian girl settled down at the opposite side of the observatory, drawing the nest of sheets and pillows around her before drifting off to sleep. Ugh, guard duty was super boring, Feferi decided, while dragging the heavier items in the glass dome across the trap door and making sure that the Arab's Cross-stitch, ahem, Ahabs Crosshair was in place and ready to be fired if necessary. At least she got the view of the gardens, which looked particularly beautiful at night.

Feferi swept her gaze across the expanse of moonlit lawns before beginning her plan to get on Eridan's good side once more. A smirk lit up her face, almost sadistic in nature, as she lifted up the bedcovers and slid in behind him, wrapping her arms around his torso and pressing her face into his back, just between the shoulder-blades. Clear as daylight, she felt him flinch and stiffen, but as she rubbed small circles onto his side with her thumb, he soon relaxed once more. For Feferi this was completely platonic in origin, although those coddarn voices brought on by puberty were whispering things in her mind that made her blush a fine pinky-purple.

"Hey," she murmured into the dark fabric of his vest, trying to distract her mind from its racy suggestions. "You're not still mad at me, are you?"

"You knoww full wwhale it's hard to when you're like this, Fef," And although she could not see the smile on his face as he said it, Feferi could certainly hear it in his voice. "But seriously, you almost made me hawe a heart attack wwhen you jus' sat on the bottom of the pool wwitrout movin'."

"Aww, you worry too much, Mr grumpy-gills! You know what else you know full 'wwhale'? That I'm not a complete dummy! It's pretty shrimple really."

"Wwell that's disputable, don't you think?" he teased, earning him a playful cuff around the back of the head before Feferi settled back down again so that they were in the double s shape they were in before. "Pretty shrimple? Hawen't heard that one before, princess."

"Seriously, though. See? No more fish puns. I am sorry that I made you so upset. I just thought it would be easier to show you." Feferi sighed, her piece-de resistance about to be unveiled. But on second thoughts, it could be hamming it up a little too much, and she definitely did not want for that to happen; that was Eridans job… the hamming it up that is.

"Aren't you supposed to be lookin' out or somethin'?"

"Aren't you supposed to be sleeping with the fishies, mister?" she retorted with a grin. Ah, yes, it was nice when he was not being grumpy at her. She would not need to use the final stage of her plan.

"Touché, Fef. But it's kinda hard gettin' to sleep wwith you distractin' me," Eridan smirked. "Anywways, 'sleepin' wwith the fishes' is more like murderin' someone than actually sleepin'."

"Aw, but I was frond of that one!" Feferi pouted. "But yes, I probably should be keeping watch... but you're so warm!" As if this needed reinforcing, she gave him a quick squeeze.

"Yeah, if I die, Fef, I'll hawe to bream it on you. Not that I don't appreciate your company, or anythin'."

"Urgh, fine." she grunted, placed a quick kiss on the ridge of his spine, before she heaved herself from the covers to sit on the chair in the centre of the room with the best vantage point.

Halfway into the night, judged entirely by the position of the fake moon in the sky, Feferi gave Kanaya's shoulder a gentle shake to wake her, and she then took over the guard duty. Feferi slid back into Eridan's nest-bed and resumed the position she had been in before –hugging him from behind. But no sooner had she done this, Eridan, still half asleep, rolled over, told her to turn over (which she did, although fairly confused) and then took the position she had previously been in. That is to say, hugging her from behind, as he muttered, "I don' wwanna be the little spoon again."

Feferi merely giggled before an idea struck her.

"Hey, Eridan, do you think you could sing the lullaby?"

"Huh? Oh, sure, Fef." He cleared his throat before beginning to sing quietly, his mouth right next to her ear, so he barely needed to raise his voice. It was an old song that Eridan's father had sung to them when they were young, and the Russian words in Eridan's low wavy voice calmed her instantly, her eyelids drooping after a few seconds of the lyrics. However, being half asleep, the Russian lines soon morphed into the exact reasons as to why Eridan disliked potato salad in English, making Feferi giggle once more before settling down to sleep.

The next morning, Kanaya's suggestively raised eyebrows and 'hint-hint what were you two _up to_ last night?' coughing aside, was especially pretty. The lack of shampoo she had used on her wet hair had made it extra frizzy, though, and it gave her the impression of a dark haired lion's mane. Eridan was practically drowning in hair when they awoke, and her locks had dried off. He was spluttering and clawing hair off his tongue for a good few seconds after waking.

Breakfast was a lengthy affair, with none of the fear and barely suppressed hunger that many of the other groups would be feeling, due to their safety. Feferi, for example, had two tins of peaches with a scoop of ice-cream for good measure. Yes. Ice-cream! Christ, they were living the high-life compared to Vriska and her team! Coddamn fucking ice-cream. Fuck yes. Hell fucking yes. But okay, whoa. We all need to settle down here.

After they ate, Kanaya, as usual, took out her sewing equipment and began to work on her tailoring.

"I think you would suit blues and greens, Feferi. Anything brightly coloured." She would often smile. And when asked what she was making, she would give an elusive smile and not answer. Whatever it was, it was large and made of a rich purple fabric. After the first day, Eridan and Kanaya got on fairly well, and often when Feferi would return from one of her walks around the grounds, they would fall silent as if discussing something to do with her. Hmm… suspicious. Very suspicious. They were lucky that she trusted them not to be bitching about her behind her back, or there would be hell to pay. For Feferi may look generally tame, but she could be a vicious girl when she wanted to.

Each morning after breakfast, Feferi would go for a stroll around the perimeter of their refuge, partially for intruders, and partially to escape from the cloying atmosphere of their situation. Trident in hand, she set off, lifting the trap-door up and floating down the spiral staircase… okay, so maybe she did not _float_ down the stairs, per se, but she was still fairly graceful, as a princess should be. Wait, no. None of this high-bloods are better nonsense. Eridan was rubbing off on her, and that was the exact opposite of what should be going on. Arg, all that stuff going through her mind last night…

As she reached the doors, deep in thought on Eridan's decent into snobbery, a male voice cried out, "Wwait, Fef!"

She turned, not too surprised to see Eridan behind her since he was the only guy in their vast mansion. Damn, after last night she kind of wanted to think things over a bit, but she could not exactly shake him off.

"Mind if I join?" he asked.

"No," she replied, but inside she was thinking, '_Well I cannot exactly say _yes_, can I_?'. "But I'll warn you now, I'm not going to be any fun. Just thinking and stuff."

"Oh." Wow, had he actually picked up on her subtle hint?

"'Oh' what?"

"Wwell, don't feel you have to wwalk wwith me. I'll be fine on my owwn."

Feferi so desperately wanted to think about things, that she agreed with him, and so they parted ways. He looked a little down trodden at this, but she was already lost in thought by the time he split off.

They had always slept in the manner they had last night: curled up together. It would be weird to sleep without Eridan's comforting mass nearby for Feferi. But as of late it had been getting more and more awkward, as expected really. Hell, she was not stupid. Feferi knew exactly why this was, but she did not want to accept it. They were growing up, and both members were finding the other increasingly attractive… or at lease she was. Eridan probably still saw her as a sister, knowing him. Far too busy to think about romance, no doubt. Yes, she would have to stop thinking about him in that way. Imagine if they did date, and they then broke up… it would be the most awkward thing afterwards. No, she could not handle a life without him, as he was so central to her, so even just as a friend, this is how it would go:

An official ban on any romance related thoughts about Eridan. There would be no dating of Eridan. No fly zone. Done.

Besides, it was one thing being his friend/sister with all his quirks, but being his _girlfriend_ with all those? She then proceeded to think about his quirks.

Although very controversial, there was much speculation about whether the higher up the hemospectrum you are, you more violent you turn out to be. This was certainly the case with indigo bloods, where they had to have certain drugs to keep them from 'flipping out'. For most, this was just an urban legend, or a rumor whispered between school friends, but when Feferi asked, Feferi got… well, before the mutation business that is. She sincerely hoped that there were not any indigo bloods here, as that would be pretty coddamn awful for them.

But enough of the meandering, the reason she was thinking this was in reference to her morail and his ever worsening temperament. A combination of the aggression in the blood, and the fame were making him act like a bit of an asshole. Moments like the night before had been getting further and further spaced as the fame increasingly went to his head. Just knowing him was getting more and more stressful as he grew arrogant and possessive of her. Thankfully, he still had his sweet moments, and if not for those she would have clocked him around the head a long time ago. Seriously, though. When she got back from this, she would have another talk on the matter of the subtle genocide hints. They were royalty, and they were idols. Wanting to kill people would not do for people in their position. They had responsibilities! And besides, she loved him like a brother (that is what it was, totally, no other feelings than sisterly affection, no sir), and you don't let those you love do stupid, reckless things. Like killing people. That was pretty stupid.

But this aggression was working its way into _her_ head as well. Recently, the littlest things were making her flip out, like the lack of towels as one example. She had destroyed that guest room, and had come out feeling ashamed, but a hell of a lot better. It horrified her.

Feferi twirled the double-ended trident between her fingers like a baton, the concentration it took ebbing her anger away. She had hoped that the water would calm her, and indeed it did for a while, but it could not keep it back for long. She would have to find a more long term solution than randomly destroying stuff, so until then she would try and soak in the pool.

So far, she had not come across anyone on these walks, but hey, there's always a first. Although how they could climb over the three metre walls with coils of electrified barbed wire toping it… she had not a clue.

"_AAAAURGGGH_!" The yell filled the air… an oddly familiar voice and adrenaline shot through her veins.

"Eridan," she muttered, and sped towards the source of the scream, the trident in an attack ready hold. "_Eridan_?"

Thankfully, the open lawns made it hard for anyone to hide themselves, and so she soon spotted the intruder. In the distance she could see someone running, a vast plume of fabric billowing out behind him – Eridan. And behind him, someone else. Someone lithe and quick.

"_Eridan_!" she cried, before letting out a scream of fury as he fell, something sticking out of his back. "Back_ off_!"

This gave her another boost of energy as she sped forwards, arms pumping back and forwards to help her gain momentum. Damn it, why couldn't she go faster? The intruder kicked Eridan in the ribs, and she could hear his howl of pain from where she was several metres away.

Feferi roared in anger and leapt towards the intruder, smacking the trident in an arc towards their head, knocking off their headgear and allowing a mane of hair to tumble free. The intruder snarled and ripped the knife from where it lay embedded in Eridan, making him whimper, before whirling it in her hand, cutting Feferi a notch in her collarbone. In response, the idol thrust the trident forwards and stabbed the girl in the arm, leaving behind a three piece wound. But she quickly realized that a long range weapon had its limits in a knife fight, and so she would have to keep this intruder girl at tridents length.

They then began their dance; Feferi trying to keep her at a far enough distance to hit with the tridents knives, and the intruder trying to get close enough to cut deeper wounds, but Feferi had the slight edge and managed to gouge her in the leg, stopping her from dodging quite so agilely a minute in.

"Enough," The intruder spat now she could no longer fight that way, and limped back towards Eridan, hoisting him up by the scarf and holding the knife at his throat. "I'm done playing fair. Try that again, bitch, and this weirdo gets it, and you'll _all_ die."

The light in her eyes made it clear that she would indeed slice Eridan's throat open if Feferi made another movement, and so the royal-blood stood her ground, still wielding the trident in her hand in case an opening revealed itself to her. The aggressive attitude could defiantly be explained by the indigo blood leaking from the intruder girl's wounds, yet desperation could also have caused it. There were other wounds from before their scuffle, probably caused from the barbed wire… although that did not explain the electricity.

"So. This is nice. We can talk like civilized people," the indigo-blood smirked, her flaming red hair shifting over her shoulders as she moved. "I'll agree to let Eridan go, if you let my person go. Zankuo."

"What? Is that what this is about? We haven't got anyone!"

"Don't play cute with me, princess," At this Feferi flinched as only Eridan really called her 'princess', and he was lying on the floor with multiple stab wounds. "Your group has really fucked up mine. First, you sliced off Turiox's hand, and now you've kidnapped Zankuo. Well. I'm not going to allow that. Group Five is not going down," As if to reinforce this, she dug the tip of her boot into one of Eridan's wounds, making him scream and scream as she laughed, a rapt expression on her face. "Oh my, I could listen to that all day. Honey, you really should just fall unconscious already."

The girl then gave him another kick before her wild, grey-eyed gaze settled upon Feferi, or rather her stomach. "So. Is what they said about you being knocked up true?" Oh god, a FefEridan follower.

At her question, well, if she was not in fear of Eridan's life, and as a result her own she would have laughed aloud, or perhaps cried… she was not sure which. Bloody shipping. The girl before her was a typical textbook definition of an indigo blood: the violent mood-swings between normal and sadistic.

"Seriously? We're thirteen! I haven't even started my fucking periods yet!" Okay, maybe she could do a _little_ bit of screeching. The rumors had really gotten to her, and for the first few days after they had began to spread through the tabloids, Feferi had holed up in her room with only ice-cream and a box-set of documentaries on the oceans for company.

"Well, maybe there's a reason for that?" she replied with a small, suggestive smirk. "Hey, seriously, I'm sorry for this. I kinda get into the fight a bit too much. And any other time I would be asking for your autograph, I mean, holy shit, you're Feferi Peixes!" Wow, she was a… fangirl? Hmm, Feferi could use this.

"Uh… well."

"And, oh man. Are you two actually an item? As in dating and shit? Because I've heard these rumors and… no… what the hell am I doing?" The girl shook her head, as if clearing her mind of these distracting thoughts, and clearing the way for those more befitting for murdering her idols. Yet before she could do this, Feferi lunged forwards with the trident and stabbed her in the stomach, twisting it before yanking it out, the intruder tumbling to the ground.

"Bitch!" the girl chuckled. "You actual _bitch_! Stabbing a fan? Wow. So you know… you know what?"

The knife still in hand, she sliced out the knife in a practiced motion and stabbed Feferi through the foot, fixing her to the ground. The purple-blood screamed, falling on one knee as she sobbed in pain, hands flailing wildly around the handle, not sure what exactly to do.

"Try getting stabbed in the gut," the girl sighed before she pushed herself to her feet and pulled another knife from her belt, arm clutched around her midriff to stem the bleeding the best she could, and hold in any organs threatening to jump-ship. "If Group Five is gonna go down, then so is yours."

Feferi barely took this in, still staring at disbelief at her foot. The intruder staggered behind her, knife raised high… and a bolt of energy sailed past Feferi's ear, skimming off the girls arm and turning it into fluid.

With a curse, Kanaya raised the Ahab's Crosshairs once more, hoping for a better shot the next time round. But it was doubtful she would have another shot. By now the intruder had already accepted that she would die, and was determined to bring Feferi down with her, and so raised the knife again.

Now knowing the girl was prepared to stab her with her dying breath, Feferi, cool and collected, picked the trident back up and with a quick twist of the body, jabbed one of the outlying prongs into the base of the girls ribs and upwards until she reached the heart, a spray of indigo catching her in the face and staining her boiler suit. The intruder coughed up a small amount of blood and fell forward onto the trident. She had died.

After a few seconds, the yellow-blood with only one hand, the one whom Kanaya had carved with her chainsaw, suddenly screamed as his body filled with a buzzing pain before he collapsed and seemed to sink through the floor, the ground absorbing his body leaving no trace. Simultaneously, a blue-blood being carried by another muscled blue-blood shrieked the calls of a dying man all of a sudden, making Equius, the carrier, drop him in a nearby garden before dashing off, worried people would be attracted to him by the noise. This blue-blood also died soon after. Group Five were gone, making the count of downed groups a grand total of three from ten.

Dropping the Ahab's Crosshairs to the ground, Kanaya rushed towards the fallen duo, Feferi looking a great deal worse now covered in indigo blood to join her own soaking through the materiel.

"Shoosh shoosh shoooooosh," Kanaya crooned as she stroked the hair from Feferi's face. "Don't look. I'm going to count down from three, and I'm going to pull it out-"

"No no no! D-don't tell m-m-me, just pull it. Get it out, _get it out_!" Feferi sobbed, cursing as soon as Kanaya's fingers so much as touched the handle of the knife in her foot. Putting a piece of fabric between Feferi's teeth to stop her from biting her tongue, Kanaya made a quick mental countdown and ripped the knife from the ground and foot, swearing when she realized the soil from the ground would likely infect the wound. "Owwww! Aurgh!"

"It's all okay, now. Don't worry, Feferi. You're going to be fine." Kanaya then turned to where Eridan lay, looking for all purposes like a harpooned whale with the knife sticking out from his side. Already, Feferi was limping over to where Eridan lay, batting off Kanaya's mothering feebly and inspecting her morails wounds. He had been stabbed in his side and in the back, as well as the odd slice on his legs. This girl had not been beating around the bush, she had meant to kill.

Well, Feferi did not need to be a doctor to tell that Eridan was pretty much stuffed as far as living a long and healthy life went.

"Eridan? Eridan? Are you still… still awake?" Feferi was going to say alive, and it was clear to all those around her, but she did not.

"Fef?"

"Don't worry," she whispered, repeating the words of Kanaya just a while before. "You're gonna be fine, Eridan. You're not going to jump ship, okay? And see? You know everything's shrimply fine because the puns are still there."

"I can see somethin'… somethin' shiny." he mumbled, looking upwards at the fake sky.

At this the fish-girl choked back a sob. He was going delusional before his death. Perhaps due to the loss of blood? Yet Kanaya followed his gaze and frowned.

"Of course, Eridan." Feferi stroked the purple highlight in his hair.

"He is correct, Feferi."

She turned, and indeed there was a small shiney object tumbling to the ground. It landed just before them, and she saw that it was a small round container. Unscrewing it, she found a tub of salve and a note.

'Sew up wounds then apply three times a day.'

With a relieved smirk, the kind that only those that have dodged death can appreciate, Kanaya commented, "They really cannot allow you to die, can they? But come, we are not out of the fire just yet. We need to stitch these wounds up."

* * *

><p>Your name is Eridan Ampora,<p>

In recent months you've been developing an overpowering GENOCIDE COMPLEX, but you are keeping it on the low until you have figured out exactly whom it is you want to kill. All those without purple blood flowing through their veins? Haven't had much luck with that, but maybe tonight's your night.

You hold a fascination for MILITARY HISTORY AND LEGENDARY CONQUERORS. You have dubiously modelled your profile and exploits after the most notorious figures and their stories. It is an image you are careful to craft through EXAGGERATED EMOTIONAL THEATRICS, and your penchant for mass murder notwithstanding, the general public tends to regard you as a BIT OF A TOOL.

You also like MAGIC, even though you know it to be FAKE. Like a made up friend, the way wizards are. Made up make believe FAKEY FAKEY FAKES. It's still fun though.

Recently, you found yourself in the odd predicament of turning GREY, which was made odder by your long time PLATONIC SOUL-MATE THING going grey at the same time. You both attempted to HIDE FROM THE MEDIA, but they assumed you had got your aforementioned PLATONIC SOUL-MATE THING PREGNANT, which made things super awkward, so you CAME CLEAN. You're both only thirteen anyway! Sheesh.

Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Sooo, is this needing more humour? Because Homestuck is like, the queen of poking fun at itself, and I feel that Saltwater Room is somewhat lacking in this. And I think I shall use the term morail now and again, because typing out 'platonic soul mate thing' every three seconds is bluh xD

+ I find it super hard coming up with all these fish puns, lol. Anyone got some good ones they would like to see in here? As I have a little list of them on my iPod, and it's pretty short at the moment. So any you send in would be super appreciated thanks!

Also, a good wodge of FefEri fluff there. I know he's still too nice here, but he will change in due time *evil grin*.

And finally saw what Mr. Hussie looks like IRL. Did not expect him to look like that at all D:

And thank you so much for reading ^^


	10. 5x point of view combo

The stitching of the wounds took about ten minutes as Kanaya pushed the needle through Eridan's skin in neat little lines, with Feferi holding his hand and stroking his face to distract him from the pain. Kanaya told him that he was lucky, that the first stab had avoided his organs by a massive stroke of luck… but the second had gotten him in the kidney by the looks of it. Somehow, he stayed awake, pain written across his face as the metal pierced his skin and the thread was drawn through.

Once she had sewn up the stab wounds on his sides, Kanaya dipped her fingers into the salve and applied it to the wounds generously, noting the immediate relaxing of his face as the balm eased Eridan's pain. The salve seemed to fizz slightly as it made contact with his wounds, and both females quickly realised why: nanobots.

"They've spared _nanobots_ for him?" Feferi gasped, although they both knew why they had. He was royalty for a start, but also there was the glaring fact that if he died, Feferi died too, and they could not allow that. Feferi Peixes, against all odds, was going to survive. And there was nothing anyone could do about that. Well. The girl was not about to complain… but then it did leave the other candidates a little out of luck. Even Vriska, despite her claims of having 'all the luck'. _Please_.

Waves of pity washed over Kanaya, however, as she thought of the other teams. While she was prepared to severely injure and quite possibly kill when it came to it, she could not say she took particular pleasure from it, or at least not if she had not been previously provoked.

Once Eridan was done, they moved back up to the observatory, wanting the safety that came with it while they licked their wounds and recovered.

Yet while she unravelled another lot of thread from her spools, preparing to sew up Feferi, a voice echoed around the room, telling them how they would need to kill someone before they could advance onwards in safety. Feferi's expression was hard at the woman's words, but she seemed to be holding up well. As long as she did not have a mental breakdown, they would be fine. Kanaya gave her a comforting pat on the knee before ordering to see her foot. It was now time for Feferi's stitching…

* * *

><p><strong>== Be the blind chick<strong>

You are now Terezi Pyrope, and an insensitive dumbass for calling her that. Gosh.

The first twenty-four hours of the blindness was the worst, and after waking without vision spent the remainder of the day walking into things and scraping her palms and knees. The following day was not spectacular either. And after the announcement from the head of T.R.O.L.L, Terezi was all for smashing her head into a wall.

Karkat and Gamzee had left her alone, for they could tell that she needed to just sit with her thoughts for a bit. Honestly, for a couple of minutes she sobbed into her palms, not wanting to accept her blindness, or how either Gamzee or Karkat were going to have to kill someone, because hell if she was going to do anything in this state.

'_Terezi_?' a voice whispered, sounding as if they were right behind her. The girl bolted upright, confused at the word she had just head.

"Hello? Who are you?"

'_Hello, my lovely_!' Oh, it was her mum. No one else called her 'lovely'… although how the heck she was talking to her inside her mind, she had not the foggiest. '_Try and speak in your head though, flower, else wise all of your friends will think you quite insane_.'

'_What, like this_?'

'_Yes. Exactly like that, lovely. Now then. I've been trying to get through to you for quite a while now in your sleep, but it seems that someone has been blocking me? Anyway, I'm speaking to you now and that is what counts_,' As always, her mother spoke in an exited tone of voice as if conveying the new found cure for aging. '_How are you_?'

'_I'm blind now_. _Someone poured some chemicals in my eyes while I slept_.' Terezi tried to think bluntly, but the mind is a tricky thing, and although her words (or thoughts rather) were emotionless, an entire plethora of emotions were transmitted to her mum that showed just how stressed and upset she was feeling.

'_Oh Tezzi_!' she cried, using the pet name she had given to her daughter when she was a baby, and a wave of soothing feelings passed through the girl, almost as good as a hug.

'_How are you even speaking like this to me anyway_?' Terezi asked, as she probably should have a while ago. '_Are you a mutant too_?'

'_Yes. But mine is not obvious in the same way that your mutation is. I'm telepathic_.'

'_I think I'd worked that bit out, mum, he he_.'

'_Don't you use that tone of thought at me, Terezi_! _Right then. We need to get you back to your old strength. I'm going to teach you how to smell and taste colours_.' And although initially apprehensive, because heck, who can smell colours, Terezi indeed learnt how to smell them. It was probably the weirdest thing she had learnt to do, and when Karkat popped in to check up on her, he thought she looked insane, sniffing objects and then saying colours aloud. Or even weirder, once her mother instructed her how to taste them.

This process involved licking objects for maximum clarity, which Terezi disliked at first… until she found out about the wealth of colours that she discovered. The vivid candy apple of reds! The grossness of green apple sours! The smooth chocolate milkshake of brown! Wow, she had been missing out big time here. Why had her mother not taught her this before?

'_Do you think you have it now, sweetie_?' her mum said after the four hour long tutorial. '_It's a trait you inherited, so it shouldn't be too hard for you to learn, my lovely_.'

It was just turning dark when Terezi ended the tutorial, and she could smell the vivid orange creamsicle of the sky from where she stood at the window, with the odd dash of purple ribena juice as the clouds. In the centre of this, hidden just behind peach squash roofs was an orb of pale, banana yellow – the sun.

With a soft click, the door opened once more as Karkat and Gamzee came in. Terezi flicked her tongue over her red glasses, revelling in the taste of candy-apples before sliding them over her destroyed eyes, covering red with red.

"Hey, sis, how are your motherfucking eyes?" Gamzee asked, a concerned look on his face, not that Terezi could tell using only her scent… and she was not about to lick him just to tell that!

"Still blind. But I don't need to worry about that anymore, he he," With a grin, she added, "Pick up something, and I'll tell you what it is. And stop giving each other that look."

In reality, she could not quite see their expressions, but from their general body language, and the way that Gamzee and Karkat turned to each other after her words, she was able to effectively guess what they were doing. Shrugging, they then each picked up an item: Karkat, his two scythes, and Gamzee, a tin of tomato soup. She instructed them to hold the items out in front of her, and she then gave the air a long, slow sniff.

"Karkat, you've got your dumb scythes, and Gamzee some… uh, a red tin?" She grabbed it from him, and licked over the label. "Soup. Tomato."

"The fuck, Terezi?" Karkat exclaimed. "How are you doing that?"

In response, she merely tapped the side of her nose with one long finger while grinning maddeningly.

"Now then. We have work to do. We need to all get weapons, and we need to murder someone, unfortunately."

"Hey, who's the fucking leader here? Guess what, and, like, get the press on this, because it's not you, Terezi. It's me. So I'll be doing the ordering about."

"You're so cute when you think that'll actually work, Karkles!" she cackled, pinching his cheek with a disturbing amount of accuracy.

While she could now see a hell of a lot more than she could before, Terezi's vision, or scent, was still not perfect, and so it was decided that until she was fully able to pick up moving objects in the dark she would not keep watch.

The next morning, Gamzee came up to her during an interesting breakfast of greenery from their garden with a cane in his hands. It was a strange device that split into three attached segments. Terezi hadn't a clue how that could be used in battle, but hey, whatever. It was still nice of Gamzee to find it for her, and so she have him another pat on the head. He had very nice hair for a stoner.

Despite the hunger that filled their bodies as readily as a virus, Terezi and Karkat sparred after breakfast. Canekind versus scythekind. Despite how Karkat had twice as many weapons as she did, and both of which sharp, she managed to beat him. Whether it was due to just his terrible skills with the scythe, or the fact that Terezi had attended fighting classes with Vriska for several years, it was uncertain. Loosing to a (pretty much) blind girl? Wow he had some work to do. But what they both knew for certain is that if someone broke in, it would probably be Gamzee that would do most of the fighting.

It was a worrying transformation, that of the lax stoner into that of a violent sadist. Both had heard the rumours of the lurid liathdaonna, of those mutants so violent that they tended to destroy themselves before they were even born. Besides, it was said that the indigo bloods could also have genes related those particular mutants… and, well, Gamzee was quite clearly an indigo-blood. So far, they had not seen him completely lose control, although he was definitely not the same boy that had sung songs about cockatoos to Karkat on the plane ride down to New Mexico, accompanied only by the tapping of his finger-nails, and the occasional honk from some weird clown horn, the item he had intended to take, but had left behind on the plane.

"Well, motherfuckers, I'm off to go look for some more motherfucking food. Look after Karkat will you, Terezi?" Gamzee winked before heading out. Quite besides the bat-like ears they had all received, Terezi's hearing had also improved since the loss of her sight, and so she heard the Aussie mutter something under his breath as he descended downstairs. "Although it'll be a fucking miracle if I find anything."

As soon as they heard the click of the door, Terezi turned back to Karkat with a big grin on her face. "Come on, crabbyface. We need to get you trained up in case anyone finds us here."

* * *

><p><strong>== Be Group One<strong>

You cannot be Group One, for we do not know anything about them. But you can be a sort of creepy stalker like narrative following them around. You are now a creepy stalker like narrative following Group One around.

If there was one thing Group One were full of, other than themselves for some odd reason, it was an unhealthy mixture of bravado and brains. The leader of their team was a slight girl of the name Yuuqui Verita, who had been a fifteen year old chemistry prodigy prior her mutation. It had not only taken everything away from her, but landed her in a group supplemented with a pair of womanising dumbasses that had no qualms about trying to hit on members of the opposing teams. This had supplied her with a disturbing lack of empathy for her fellow human beings, and so she hadn't any issues with the killing and maiming of others. The brawn of their team were both American football players with buzz cuts and a ridiculous amount of muscle on their arms. And yet, after one of them had tried slapping some poor thirteen year old on the butt, her team mate, an oddly… well, not slender, per se, but certainly not a bulky looking young boy, had hit him back so hard he ended up being thrown across the central plaza, dislocating his arm. It hadn't been a great day for Group One, needless to say, and because of this, the boy, Lenuit, had formed a grudge against what they found to be called Group Seven; in particular Equius Zahhak.

When the woman had announced that they would all have to kill at least one other mutant before their team would be allowed to survive, Lenuit knew just which group he wanted to target. But before they could do that, they had to finish their current business, which was taking over control of the shop from the foolish Group Three. Sure, the third group had control over almost all of the provisions for the game, which brought them a degree of security, but that made them a delicious target. And that was something that Group One just could not resist.

With the strength of Lenuit and Essair controlled and distilled into a flawless action plan by Yuuqui, Group Three had not stood a chance and were quickly defeated by two snapped necks and a punctured lung. Although the boy with the punctured lung disintegrated due to the death of his team mates before he could actually die on his own terms. They allowed themselves a brief feast before packing up anything useful and hauling it off to their shelter, with Lenuit and Essair as pack horses.

Yuuqui provided a brief motivational speech on how they were going so far, and what they would need to do next to ensure the best chances of survival before leaving for her lair once more. The next day, she laid out the plans for their removal of Group Four. One of them had insulted her while they were being sorted into groups, and her twisted purple-blooded mind wanted revenge. The kind of revenge that ended in deaths.

From what she could gather from the third group before they were silenced, they were in a sort of partnership with Group Four, with the fourth group shooting any who tried to get into the shop. Well, lucky they had snuck in under the cover of darkness then. They had been doing a lot of that, sneaking around in the dark, getting the low down on the other teams and causing a bit of havoc. Just a day or so prior, Yuuqui had found the shelter of Group Nine and blinded someone in their team. As they had not done anything in particular against her, she decided to be merciful and let them live with only a warning. Besides, one of the guys in their group was cute.

Unlike Three, Group Four had proved to be somewhat more challenging with one member handy with a rifle, and another with a vicious spear. Except that the spear snapped in half easily after it was lodged in the wielder's chest, and although one bullet clipped of half of Essair's ear, a similar bullet clipped of half of the rifle-wielder's cranium. It was only fair, after all, that the strongest survived, no?

Their goods were collected, and another group was officially slashed from the list of survivors. Now, there were only five groups. One more would have to be destroyed, but even if that occurred then only three could pass through to the next stage of the T.R.O.L.L facility, as each group must have murdered at least one other group…

Well, Yuuqui was done with the brawn of the group for the evening, and so the brawn were free to do what they wished. Each picked up a club and headed for the door. Essair and Lenuit had taken down the easy prey, and now wished for something with a little more… bite.

She was okay with that. The moronic duo made a lot of noise, so it was good to let them out now and again, to let off steam and what not. Besides, Yuuqui needed to work.

It was known that occasionally children were just born with twisted personalities. Yuuqui Verita was one of these children. It was simply the way she was, and although if she'd had amazing parents that worked hard on turning her into a decent member of society, she could have turned out to be a nice person, but the fact was that her family were snobs meant that the time of reform was too late. Having been home schooled by her parents from birth, essentially, she had never really had much in the way of contact with anyone her own age. Then, there was the fact that she was of the same blood caste as Eridan Ampora, and so she should have been able to afford anything her little heart desired… but that was one thing she would not have, as her parents had denied her this inheritance as it was deemed 'character building', not until she was eighteen anyway. Since she would be living with her parents until this age anyway, most could not see the problem with this. But her friends, all other purple-bloods only fuelled her opinion that this was a great injustice by going on vast shopping sprees every other weekend which she could not attend, lest she get jealous and smash something. So when someone did something that annoyed her, the grudge was held until she rectified their action with something of a worse nature.

Being a chemist, Yuuqui knew a fair amount about making things go BOOM. And from what she had gathered from the mutterings of an asleep Terezi, Vriska had a love for a certain object, and what luck Yuuqui had! Just the other day she had stumbled across one in the attic, and so with a few minor alterations, the trap was set.

Vriska, well Group Eight really, had stolen a certain house from her clutches. Damn. It would have been the perfect shelter from them and they had been planning to sneak in, back when they were not so comfortable about murder, but Vriska had gotten there first. Well, Yuuqui would not let such a thing slip.

With a grin, she slid out of the door and disappeared into the night. She had an important package to deliver.

* * *

><p><strong>== OH MY GOD what even happened to Tavros? Be him<strong>

You cannot be Tavros Nitram, for he is unconscious.

**== Fine. Then Vriska, hurry up with the bucket filling already so you can swoop in to Tavros's aid.**

You guess you can acquiesce to that, although… there is something incredibly awkward about buckets all of a sudden…

**== People are dying.** **YOU FILL THAT BUCKET THIS INSTANT**

You are now Vriska Serket and you are filling that bucket this instant

Someone was calling her, she was certain of it, but it was all but drowned out over the sound of water gushing into the bucket she had found under one of the sinks in the kitchen. No sooner had Vriska fixed her eyes upon it had she felt a flush rise onto her face. Odd. She would have to come to terms with this sudden embarrassment at buckets later. Right now there were fires to put out, damsels to save and what not. Well… damsel anyway. And a male damsel at that.

Upon seeing Tavros's passed out form on the floor, she all but hurled the water at the painting, and tugging the bottom of the boiler-suit up over her face, dragged him out of the room. She was not about to see her team get destroyed simply because Tavros inhaled too much smoke.

"Sollux, take him while I get more water. We need to put that fire out." she gasped, coughing out the smoke between sentences as she passed Tavros to the geek. "Jesus, I wonder if any of the other groups are having this crazy amount of fun. It's unfair to be hogging it all like this."

After three buckets of water, the fire died out and the group shut the door on the smoke, wondering what to do with it.

"We can't just release it outside." Vriska argued. "It'll be a pretty clear signal to where we are."

"How about when night fallth? The other teams thouldn't be able to thee it then."

Sollux made a good case, and so it was decided that they would wait for the skies to darken more before the smoke would be let out. In the mean time, however, they focused on their fallen team mate.

"Poor Tavroth. He'th taking the bulk of the thit at the moment."

"A meat shield, you mean?"

"Yeth, I gueth you could thay that."

"Urg, come oooooooon. Wake up, Tavros." she crooned over his face, lightly slapping his cheeks. He had been laid out on one of the sofas in the living room, his small form hidden beneath a duvet as Sollux tried to make the boy somewhat comfortable. Vriska imagined that he could not wait for the growth spurt that would doubtless come soon to accompany its good friend 'wavy, breaking voice'. At her words, he stirred a little, and with a little more encouragement (face slapping) he woke and was greeted with a bottle of water being shoved in his face. "Drink this."

"That's what I, uh, tend to do with water."

"So witty. You know, maybe if you put some of that bravado attitude into getting the hell better, we wouldn't be in this situation." she smirked, then ruffled his hair, messing it up more than before… if possible.

Night soon fell and Sollux volunteered to be the one to let out the smoke, as he was the one who had caused it in the first place. Once it was all gone, Tavros and Vriska entered the room once more, the former being wheeled in on the wheelie-chair, as hell, they may as well use it at some point.

Their stuff reeked of smoke, but did not seem to be ill affected by it. Vriska's dice were kept safe, nestled in the velvet of the casing, with Tinkerbull whiffing a little and Sollux's iPhone not looking worse for the wear, due to it being in his pocket the whole time, as always.

"Well. It could, uhh, be worse I guess."

"It could almost always be worse, squirt." she said, pursing her lips. "Anyway, where will we sleep tonight? We can't sleep in here, we'll hack up our lungs the next morning or whatever."

So they slept in the living room, with the two sleepers sharing the sofa, and the person keeping watch sitting on the armchair. Sometime in the early hours of the morning, Vriska sat up alert in the chair. She could hear something, or rather some_one_. Creaking echoed down the corridor that went past the living room.

It was probably just the house settling… yeah.

Another creak. Well, it seemed that this house had oddly regular settling boards… but it was not as if there was heating in this house; the fact that she could see her breath was evidence enough of that. So it was not that things were expanding as they heated…

As silently as possible, she stood, padding over to where Sollux and Tavros lay sleeping with the knife gripped firmly in her hand. Should she wake them? If it was a false alarm then a shit storm would doubtlessly be released from Sollux who really likes his sleep, and Tavros wouldn't exactly be an issue. But what if they made a noise as they woke, and gave away the fact that they were awake? Was she thinking too hard about this?

A thud sounded just outside the door to the living room, and the footsteps then receded once more. But Vriska did not collect whatever had been left outside, for it could be a trap, and they could still be just outside the door for all she knew. So she waited… and waited… and waited until morning, when the sun shot its irritatingly perky rays through the window. Yet despite her annoyed metaphors, relief flooded through her body at the appearance of the sun… even if it was fake.

The boys woke a couple of hours after sunrise, as Vriska could not contain the curiosity at what lay outside the door. It could potentially kill or maim her, and hey, curiosity killed the cat, but hell, she was nosy and was not getting any younger.

"." Vriska splurged as an explanation before dashing to the door and finding an innocent looking box. She gave a quick look down either side of the corridors before gently picking it up and carrying it inside.

She sat on the armchair, the box cradled between her crossed legs with Tavros and Sollux on the sofa opposite. Feeling like Pandora, she lifted the lid up, expecting perhaps a bomb, or a venomous snake or something, but instead her eyes widened, for nestled in the fabric of the box was a pure white magic-8-ball.

"Oh." she gasped and pulled it from the box delicately, clutching it between her outstretched fingers. Kicking the box onto the floor, she swapped to her usual magic-8-ball pose, with the orb held in her left hand, the right resting on her leg and said a silent vow that she would never smash this one _ever_. But then again, addiction is a powerful thing, and so she would have to be careful. "What to ask? Hmm… how about, 'is Group Eight going to get through to the next level?'"

Sollux had picked up the box and was rummaging about through its contents, looking for a clue as to where it came from. Upon finding a small folded note, cried out, "Vrithka, thtop!" just as she shook the ball forcefully… and then it blew up, and the note tumbled to the ground along with Vriska's left arm.

Landing face up on the ground, Vriska's remaining eye just about picked up the carefully scribed words on the note. 'I am going to blow up in your face.'

* * *

><p><strong>== This doesn't look good, be the French chick<strong>

You are now Marie Antoinette, on your way to meet the Dauphin of France for the first time-

**== Stop messing around! Besides, Marie Antoinette was Austrian, and that was centuries ago. Be Aradia**

You are now Aradia Medigo

Well, that was a riveting message to wake up to, Aradia thought as the facility owner's voice left the room. Deciding to have a lie in that morning had proven to be a bad idea, as she had missed most of the message, and it was clear from Nepeta's expression that it had been an important one.

Since the previous evening, Nepeta's condition had improved drastically with the immense pain coming from her temples lasting a couple of hours. In fact, she had woken in the night as relieved Aradia from her guard duty, so convinced was she of the nature of her recovery. Yet Equius was still keeping an eye on her, understandably, in case she suddenly turned bad again. The result of the previous night's pain were the tips of two bright yellow horns poking from the buds on her head. They were not sure whether to be horrified or amazed, in all honesty. While the fact that she, and indeed the rest of them, would be growing horns was fairly astonishing… but then again, there was also the point on how she would never be able to blend into society again now. With the grey skin, one could just about cover it with a thick coat of foundation, and the eyes, covered with dark sunglasses. But horns? Unless one was willing to wear a hat at all times, they guessed, there was little you could do.

"Non! C'est dégoûtant, ça!" Aradia hissed once Nepeta had filled her in on the announcements message. "So… we will have to kill quelqu'un? That is despicable! This is surely about controlling us, no? If we are willing to go as far as, euh, as murdering other human beings simply because they say so, then they can use us however they want! Merde!"

"Well, they may as well put us to some use," Equius shrugges. He had seemed oddly different that morning, as if Aradia's words the night before had had some effect on him. He must want the bow and arrow fairly badly. But still, it was good… albeit a little weird seeing him so pensive. "Yet I doubt the majority of us will provide as even half-decent soldiers. The effect that murder will have on young minds such as our own will be wholly negative."

"Excuse me fur the language, but _duh_. If we're broken then it'll make us easier fur them to mould us into the shapes they want, which at the moment looks like an army of mutant child soldiers," Nepeta offered, the serious tone to her voice still going strong, and Aradia wondered where the carefree, childish Nepeta had gone. "But one of us is going to have to do the deed, aren't they? Kill someone? And I think it's going to have to be me."

"Non, Nepeta! Pourquoi?"

"Why? Because you're too sweet, and Equius has enough complexes to last him a lifetime, what with the recent… developments in strength going on."

"Nepeta…" he growled at this, not wanting her to divulge his problems.

"Oh come on, Equius, she deserves to know! Besides, it's not like it's super well hidden or anything," she said, rolling her eyes at his expression, which was essentially a pout. "Either way, it's going to be me taking someone down."

"I forbid you from speaking on the matter, Nepeta."

"But!"

"No! I do not want to talk about this." His voice sounded sad, quiet and at right-angles to the strength he seemed to exude. Damn it, why could he not be simple!

"We're all going through, euh, shit at the moment," Aradia smiled in what she hoped was an encouraging way. "But hiding from it will only lead to more pain."

"It does not befit you, that crude language." But it was said with a small smile. Well, it was not exactly a hug, but _damn it_, it was a start.

"Et bien, how about this. I'll tell you about my problems, and you tell me about yours. D'accord?"

With a nod, they sat opposite each other on the bed, neither noticing that Nepeta had slunk out of the room with a smirk on her face. Aradia told him about her life as a maroon blood, about her tall, French mother who'd had to sleep around to get her high-end job, and her South-Korean father who loved her so much he accepted it. Equius had frowned at this stage, expecting such things as resorting to sex to get jobs when one was a low-blood, but not at how her parents still loved one another still.

The Parisian told him of a mutant, one from the old days, where it was not all elegantly grey-tinted skin, and yellow eyes, but one with a tumour in her brain that made her act wild. She said that this mutant had killed her maman's father, and that this mutant was her grandma, and since then her mum had set out to make sure all mutants were locked up… except then the mutations began to change, and it was no longer locking up those that are a danger to themselves and those around them, but locking up children with nothing more than a splotch of grey on their nose. And how when Aradia found out that she was a mutant, that she was terrified that her family would reject her so she desperately tried to hide it, resorting to trying to gouge off the horn nubs, to shave off the grey spots of her skin until she would pass out, and then begin again the next day.

While speaking on this topic, Aradia's fingers unconsciously began to trace over the white ridges of scar tissue dotted here and there over the skin of her arms. Looking at the buds of her horns, Equius noticed that there were still scabs covering the surface of them, with even worse scaring there than on her arms. Although he did not express it, he was concerned for her, whether the self-mutilation was still occurring, and he wondered if the maiming would affect the growth of her horns.

But not once did she cry. She was strong and would not break down in front of this weird Scotsman. No.

There was something oddly… admirable, Equius was finding, in this girl with the wide mouth, and the large, dark eyes and the beginnings of a slight swagger to her walk. Ugh, those gutter-bloods with their powers of seduction! Even as thirteen year olds, it was beginning to show.

"Euh… is it normal for you to sweat so much? Would you like a towel?" she asked, doing her best to conceal a disgusted expression.

"Ah. Yes, but I can get it."

Once he had towelled himself down (although since more sweat was replacing that which he had removed every second, there was little point) he sat down and hesitantly, slowly began to tell her shards of his story. Much of it she had heard from Nepeta, who was more liberal about such things with Aradia who had seemed fine to talk to. What he told her was of his rapidly increasing strength. While he had never been scrawny, recently he had been getting outrageously strong and could easily destroy most objects with nothing more than his fists.

"It is simply a matter of self-control," Aradia had said to him afterwards. "If we were not here, then I would recommend meditation and certain forms of, euh, martial arts, non? You must harness the strength."

But it was then when a voice cried out "_Equius_!" before being silenced, perhaps with a hand, perhaps with something else and the door was kicked open, Nepeta squirming in some heavily muscled boys arms. He had an arm locked around her neck, and despite her best efforts could not break free. This boy had the makings of a heavyweight boxer, and was soon joined by another with a similar build. Equius looked miniscule compared to the two sixteen year olds, as he was built up mainly of leaner, corded muscle. And as for Aradia, well… if Equius looked small, then she may as well be microscopic.

Her eyes then narrowed as she recognised them. The boy on the left was the one who had slapped her butt in the first few minutes of this fiasco, and presumably that on the right was another from his team.

"Group One." The right said. "Thought you'd like to know the name of the group going to kill you."

"Merci beaucoup, connard," Aradia spat, and then added a few more fairly coarse sentences in French, describing just how ugly his face was, and the various graphic ways she hoped he could impale himself on a rake. "What do you want for the release of Nepeta?"

"Oh!" The right chuckled, mocking her boldness and making a big show and dance of it. He then put on an atrocious French accent and turned to his companion, "Oh! Oh, sacre-bleu, I don't know, Lenuit. What do you think?"

"How about you let us beat up that guy there, and we'll give her back," The left, Lenuit, shrugged. Aradia could have laughed. From what she had seen of Equius's strength, it was pretty insane and not something to be taken lightly. Until, that is, he added, "But I want him tied up, because I'm not gonna misunderestimate him again."

"It's just underestimate, dumbass." Nepeta hissed when Essair's hand slipped a little, for which she was rewarded with a quick jerk of his arm, crushing her windpipe a little and making her hack in pain. She glanced across to where Equius stood, her eyes speaking for her while her mouth could not, and somehow some form of plan was conducted. The blue-blood glanced at Aradia, giving a small nod before stepping forwards.

"Stop there!" Essair, the brawn on the right, ordered. Without the lust for revenge clouding his vision he could clearly remember the damage the Scotsman had caused with little effort on his part.

"Are you really… so weak that you… need to tie him… up?" Nepeta croaked, squeezing the words out the best she could.

Essair laughed, "I'm not the one beating him up. You can't taunt me into your bullshit, bitch."

It was evident from the earlier attack that Equius did not take well to people calling his morail a bitch, which was understandable really. He lunged forwards and smacked Essair in the jaw with his fist, causing the boy to fly back into the wall with a thud. Quick as a lioness, Nepeta broke free of his grip and pushed away from his body before it hit the wall, her retractable knives ripping forwards, aiming towards his neck. She grabbed him by the front of his boiler suit, the razor-sharp blades of one hand mere millimetres away from the jugular.

Lenuit smirked, deciding that Nepeta's act was a bluff. Pity that it wasn't.

She slowly gouged one of the knives into Essair's arm, making him tightly clench his teeth to stop the curses and cries of pain.

"The mighty huntress saunters over to the fallen boar, her claws out and ready to take it out quickly if it threatens her," Nepeta narrated, keeping the knives at his neck once more, ignoring Equius's small smirk. "She gives it a look of pity, as she would not normally kill such a troubled creature, but times are hard, and she has cubs to feed."

Nepeta paused, giving Essair a look. She felt a little guilt at how she was threatening him, when it was clearly Lenuit who had an issue to settle with Equius, and was likely just dragging the other boy along. But as she had said: times were hard and they had to kill _someone_ to get through to the next round, and it seemed it would be this boy.

"W-wait, wait a second. There's gotta another group you could kill, huh? I mean, what did I do to you?" Essair stammered, avoiding eye contact. Nepeta faltered slightly in her position, just enough for the boy to barrel forwards and knock her to the ground, pummelling her with blows from his fists.

But before Equius could rip the hulking mass from her, another did the deed as a tall, spindly tangle of limbs leapt towards Essair and, after picking up the heavyweight's club from the floor, smacked him around the head hard enough to create a dent.

"Quick," the newcomer said, pointing towards where Lenuit was about to charge. "You've gotta kill the motherfucker before he dies as well, or your group won't get through to the next fucking round."

The olive-blooded girl nodded, prepared to go kill the boy despite how she could barely stand, and so was surprised when an arrow shaft suddenly buried itself into Lenuit's chest, piercing the heart neatly. Essair received another blow around the head, killing him at the same time as a second arrow shot Lenuit in the eye. They were both absorbed into the floor, and on the other side of the village, Yuuqui ended her chuckles of victory as she felt her body bubble over with pain, and she too sank into the tarmac without a trace.

The disembodied woman's voice filled the room for the final time. "Enough. We have our four groups: Group Seven, Group Eight, Group Nine and Group Ten. Congratulations. Return to the plaza, and you may leave the village. Note that any killing of these final groups will result in your own death. That is all."

* * *

><p>End of part one.<p>

**== Enter The Retainment Organisation for Lucid Liathdaonna.**

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_ALL_ the POV switches.

And so, we finish part one! Next up is where I have most of it planned out, and where my original idea stemmed from. But enough about that, you will soon find out about that part! Well, I say soon, it may take another couple months to fully write out that part in full.

When I write, I often try to figure out just which group is the most fun to write as, and I still can't pick one! Although obviously, Group Eight, as the focus of this story, receive more attention than the others! Especially Tavros and Vriska, hehe.

Finally, just saw some fanart of the tavriska sprite thingy on the interwebz. Not that I'm there yet, lol, but WHUT. Whoa, that Hussie is a strange man. Is it weird that I'm looking forwards to getting to that part of the comic just for the lolz that will ensue? :S

And thanks for reading! ^^


	11. Gross, liquorice

The journey to the town square was difficult for all of the four remaining groups, namely due to the paranoia of death that seeped into all their minds as soon as they left their shelter. But it was an especially hard journey for that of Group Eight due to the nature of the injuries that plagued them. Sollux, the member of their team in best health, pushed Tavros's wheelie-chair through the silent, dusty streets, with the people he chauffeured offering little companionship… mainly due to one of them being passed out, and the other doing his best to keep her from falling to the ground.

A trail of blue blood followed them closely, the source of this path being Vriska's arm, or rather, the stub where the arm had once been. They had the actual arm with them as well, though, just in case they could somehow reattach it… but if honest, they had little hope for reattachment due to the condition of what remained of her arm; it was in about three pieces, with much of the flesh missing from the forearm, and the hand (or what remained of it), well, there was no way that she would ever be able to used those mangled remains again. But she was a blue-blood, so perhaps they could grow her a new one. The arm pieces joined her boiler-suit, which she hadn't been wearing when the orb exploded having washed it the night before. It was slightly funny in a morbid way, that she had taken the time to wash the article of clothing only to have it coated with more of her own blood in her bag.

In the square, groups Nine and Seven were waiting for the others to finally arrive so that they could get started on entering T.R.O.L.L. They had already introduced themselves to the other group due to the nature of their final murders. If Gamzee had not appeared and torn Essair from Nepeta, then Nepeta probably would have died, and the opening needed for Aradia to shoot the other member of Group One would not have arisen. To put it into simpler terms, it would have been Group One stood in the sun rather than Group Seven. Speaking of such things, Equius was still grovelling at the indigo-blood's feet, thanking him as if his life depended upon it… which if you thought about it, it kind of had. But it was still hideously embarrassing for Nepeta to watch his constant praise and submission, because the high-blood clearly did not give a shit.

"Thank you, grand highblood, for taking the time to save my sister. I apologise for the fact that you had to touch a yellow blood to do that, however."

"Ha, seriously, bro, it was a fucking pleasure." The stoner gave him a slow smile, slightly uncomfortable at the attention he was receiving, which grated with the lack of spoor-slime he had been having in the past few days.

"Oh my god, is that Vriska?" Terezi grinned after seeing the mane of hair in the distance, or rather after sniffing it.

Karkat pulled his gaze away from the amusing Equius to look in the direction that Terezi was pointing, "Who?"

"She has, like, _loads_ of hair, pretty tanned… no wait, not anymore, he he. She has an expression like this," Terezi then proceeded to pull what she thought was a befitting expression, which was a sort of eerie, malicious smile. Karkat commented that he could see no difference in her face. "Whatever, Karkles."

"Tavros!" Aradia called, seeing him behind Vriska's slumped form and waving with big arches of her arms, yet she could soon see that something was wrong. "Tavros?"

Why was he not walking? Why was Sollux pushing Tavros and Vriska along on a wheelie-chair, why? Ideas began to float around in her mind, piecing themselves together but none were particularly nice. Panicking, she hurled the bow and arrow down onto the floor and began to sprint towards the eighth group. Did Vriska do something to him?

Skidding to a halt, she stopped before the chair, barely taking in Vriska sat on his lap, with Tavros's arms wrapped securely around her middle to stop her falling and Sollux's confused glance.

"Uh, hey Aradia." Tavros said, looking up at her form.

"Tavros? Are you okay? What… why are you not standing? Il y a une raison?" she panted.

A small wave of panic passed over his face, but he quickly gained control of it and replied, "We didn't eat much, and I'm, uh, pretty scrawny, so I've been getting dizzy spells. I can't really walk long distances without collapsing."

Sollux gave him a slightly confused look, but did not interrupt his ruse; evidently wanting to protect Vriska… but as to why he wanted to do that… Sollux hadn't a clue. "Yeah, he'th being a panthy."

"Shoosh! Don't be so rude!" Aradia smirked, playfully swatting at his arm.

"I, uh, think Vriska's the one you should be paying attention to." Despite the fact that she had removed his ability to walk on his legs forever (not that Aradia was to know this), he still worried for her.

"What… what happened to her arm?"

"Someone set a trap for her, and they, uh, well they blew her arm off. She's pretty, uh, lucky though."

"How is this lucky? She's not even, euh, conscious!" Aradia quickly checked the bindings on the blue-blood's arm. The bindings seemed fairly secure, but much blood was still seeping through the fabric of the sheets they had used as makeshift bandages.

"What's wrong with Vriska?" Terezi demanded as she too joined the group of mutants. Inhaling deeply, she tried to piece together what she could sense, but all she was getting was a hell of a lot of blue. Well shit. "What is it?"

"The'th lucky becauthe the bomb wath obviouthly meant to kill. Tho jutht losing an arm ith pretty fucking good conthidering."

"She's lost an _arm_?" Definitely shit.

"_H-ello_!" Feferi cried as they got to the village square. "Oh my glub, Aradia, vous est pas mort! Well _don-e_!"

The princess embraced the French girl tightly, as if they had been friends for years rather than hours. Aradia was not sure what to do in such situations, but gave her a friendly pat on the back nevertheless. Encouraging such friendships between high-bloods and low bloods was good.

"Bonjour, Feferi. Ça va?"

"Oui, merci! Et vous?"

Aradia gave her a quick nod before the wheelie-chair reached the centre of the square, and she went to pick up her bag where she had stored a small supply of bandages and other medical supplies. They had no idea how long it would take for them to be taken into T.R.O.L.L, so it would do well for Vriska to be properly treated. There was about ten or fifteen centimetres left of her arm before the flesh was striped from bone, and only a couple more centimetres extending from this of bone.

"Oh dear. I take it this is the worst of our injuries?" Kanaya gasped as she approached. "Besides the countless people that we have, ah, people whose places we have taken."

The Russian then noticed Gamzee's tall form by a bench and made a beeline towards him, enquiring about the state of her childhood memento. Sure, Vriska was cute, but she did not know her well enough to stick around to gawk at her injury when there were bigger fish to fry.

"I trust that you have kept my book safe, Gamzee?"

Yet before he could say a word in reply, a strange shooshing sound filled the area as a square of black opened into the sky – a hole – and from this a lift slowly descended into the village, supported by thick steel cords.

With a soft and oddly menacing 'ding!' the doors slid open, cheery music playing on the inside pouring out to greet the survivors.

"Uh… is this actually happening?" Terezi rose an eyebrow at the scene before her. "Elevator music? For the lift into the freaky 'retainment organisation'? This woman's a bit of a creep."

"Well. As I believe you say. May as well get it over with, non, Nepeta?" Aradia smirked in the direction of her team mate. Poor Nepeta had had to be carried for the journey to the square, Equius worried that the girl would pass out any moment due to the pounding she had received. Yet after a sit down, she was feeling somewhat better.

With a flash of her wicked teeth, Nepeta grinned, "Yup, that's purrfectly correct usage of the term."

With a small amount of hassle, the twelve trolls got into the room of the lift. It was not a particularly large lift, and with the addition of Tavros's wheelie-chair there was little space.

"Wwould you _shift_ already, low-blood?"

"Watch your language, thit-head."

"_OW_! Whose fucking horns were they?"

"Sorry, Karkat!"

"Cease your lewd language towards her."

"I'll clean my fucking language up when I fucking want to. Which for your information, won't be any fucking time soon."

"Come on, that was just lame, Karkles." Terezi cackled, covering Karkat's mouth with a hand to prevent any further continuation of the conversation.

The lift continued to shift for what felt like an hour to Tavros, but can't have been more than five minutes. Vriska's blood had long since begun to seep through the trousers of his boiler suit, but due to the nature of his injuries he could not feel a thing. Not the warmth or the blood, nor the stickiness of it, or even the dead weight of Vriska on his lap. In fact, if she was not slumped on him he may well have begun to freak out again, and unconsciously his grip around her waist increased. She was currently a stand in for Tinkerbull, and he hoped that she would not mind… ha, who was he kidding? If she found out that he was hugging her not only for her own security, but also his, she would have a major freak out.

With another 'ding!' the lift came to a gentle stop, and the children slowly got out. After what they had been put through last time they were here, they could not say they were looking on their next period of time in the retainment organisation.

Waiting for them was a group of twelve men and women in pale blue-green outfits. Medics.

"Three of us have each been allocated to your teams as to heal any injuries you have received. So separate into your original groups now," One ordered, and indeed the order was soon done, as this woman was clearly of the same blood caste as Eridan, and so commanded the attention of all. "We are all specialised in your respective blood castes and will do our best to help you. Now, Group Ten, with me."

Each of the three remaining teams of medics called for a group, and they then headed off to different wings of the floor they were on.

* * *

><p>Which Group would you like to follow?<p>

**== Uhh…**

Group '_uhh'_ not recognised. Please try again.

**== Bluh, stupid computers! Oh whatever, go with Group Eight**

Group '_Bluh, stupid computers! Oh whatever, go with Group Eight_' not recognised. Please try again.

**==Group Eight!**

You are now Sollux Captor, and you are fed up with puthing your team mateth around everywhere already

Upon seeing Vriska's condition, the cerulean-blooded medic's eyes widened and he quickly ushered them towards a room. Inside, a hard looking bed stood in the centre of the room, with two chairs pushed up against the wall and an operating robot on hand in the corner.

"I had not known that her injury was this bad." he muttered as he pulled various objects from the cabinets and drawers that lined one of the walls before lifting Vriska up and placing her gently upon the bed.

"How did you know in the firtht place?" Sollux asked.

"Oh, uh, from the first glance I gave you."

Sollux, ever the cynic, soon picked up on his subtle hints. "You had camerath thet up in the village, right? To keep an eye on uth."

"Quite, yes, I suppose that there is no use in the delaying the matter anymore. Although I hardly believe that you would assume we weren't keeping an eye on you all." The cerulean-blooded doctor amused Sollux. It was funny to think that this is how Vriska should really be. Most people of her blood type were fairly odd as the castes went. Because they were only just blue-bloods, they often felt the need to do extra-special things to make up for that dash of green in their blood. Things such as becoming interesting professionals, or getting jobs with high prestige in society, or things such as speaking in a distinctly upper-class way. Or even things as odd as having the most elaborate houses, achieved only by saving the money they got until their homes could rival that of the indigo-bloods. Yes, Vriska was nothing like the man before them, having lived in terraced housing in an area dominated by green-blooded castes of all types: lime green, teal and olive.

"Have you got any of the arm's remains? The smoke created by the bomb rather obscured the camera, I'm afraid."

**== Retrieve arms**

Ath if that gag hath not been over uthed. But nonetheleth, you pull out the three pieceth of her arm that remain and hand them to the doctor

"Ah. Yes, these will not do. We may well have to grow her a new one then."

"You would, uh, pay for that? I'm fairly certain that's, uh, pretty expensive stuff to do." Tavros commented, then when he noticed the look the doctor was giving him soon slunk down low into his seat, his nervous grin adorning his face.

"Well, that is all. You may now accompany them to their respective rooms." the blue-blood ordered once more with a flick of his wrist, indicating that the other two doctors leave as well.

The first of these other doctors was an olive-blooded woman with a hard face, and the other, the vivid blue of Equius's caste. Odd. People of that blood colour tended to get fairly shirty about those of lower castes than they ordering them around. Sollux frowned, something odd was going on. Odder than the use of children as what were essentially gladiators anyway.

"Mr Nitram, we have reasons to believe that you are either unable to stand due to pain tolerance levels, or that you have been paralyzed," the blue-blood said as Sollux wheeled the boy down the twisting corridors. "Could you please confide to us what has occurred?"

"Well, uh, I was pushed out of a window and landed on my back. And now my legs, uh, and now they feel… invisible. Wow, I'm sure there was a better way to say that," A nervous grin worked its way onto his face with little challenge as he began to ramble in his characteristic faltering manner. "Anyway, that's really all there is, uh, to report on the subject, of me getting hurt."

"So the blue-blood pushed you out of a window, is what you are saying."

"Uh, yes."

"Where do your senses stop?"

"About the small of my back. Uh…" Tavros reached his hand down the back of the chair to point, but then realised that it would not help them much. Most could not see through chairs. "Well, uh, yeah. You get the idea."

"I'm afraid that we may not be able to treat you, Mr Nitram. As of yet, you have not developed any talents, so the stem cell therapy cannot be funded. Unlike with your team mate, Ms Serket."

"Tho you're thaying 'get freaky thuper-human powerth, or we won't heal your thpine'? Way to be dickth."

The olive-blood pursed her lips, containing any anger that may break her calm mask. "And Mr Captor. We presume all is well with you?"

"Other than the rethidual poithon in my veinth, yeah. Doing pretty fucking good," he replied, sarcasm tinting his words a slight yellow that Terezi would have picked up straight away. "Can't you take my treatment cothtth and tranthfer them to him?"

With a small, sad smile that one might give a child whom relieved themselves upon the floor in attempt to show you how well they could use their potty, the blue-blood said, "Noble as your suggestion is, that is not how our system works here, Mr Captor."

The olive-blood took control of the wheelie-chair from Sollux, and carted Tavros into a room similar to that of Vriska's, leaving Sollux alone with the blue-blood. Like with his team mates, he was soon led into a medical room and told to lie down on the cold slab of metal in the centre. He shivered as he stretched back, and thought that it could do with one of those many bed sheets Feferi was telling them about _excit-edly_ while in the lift. How odd that they would have so many bed sheets in one house…

"You will have been shot with one of our respiratory inhibitors. You are lucky to have been given the antidote within ten minutes of injection, or the damage to your body would have been permanent, even with the assistance of nanos and stem cells. They can't work miracles." the doctor commented as they worked on him, taking blood samples and generally prodding him all over. Yet it was soon over and done with, and Sollux was sent to a waiting room with the knowledge that he 'seemed to be okay'. Well thanks.

After a couple dozen minutes, Tavros wheeled himself in on a wheelchair, the kind that were made for those unable to walk, as opposed to a wheelie-chair with a belt. Evidently the doctors had decided that he was not worth the costs of treatment and so had decided to leave him disabled. Waving off his concerns, Tavros told him that while his spine was not fixed, his general cuts, including the large one on his back that had been causing him issues, had been healed. Well, stitched and slathered with antiseptic at any rate.

"Do you know what they're doing to Vrithka?" Sollux asked the other boy of Group Eight. "Thince you were with them longer."

With a frown, Tavros replied, "I tried, uhh, asking. But they were pretty, uh, unresponsive. I don't think they're low-blood's biggest fans, really."

Sollux snorted, "Stuck up pricks."

* * *

><p><strong>== Vriska, wake already<strong>

Right: you've got a head full of groggy, a belly full of period cramp and a left arm stuffed with… oh shit, you forgot about that. You are now Vriska Serket

What torture was this, Vriska pondered as she slowly regained consciousness. It felt like someone had taken an umbrella and were currently trying to slowly twist it through her lower abdomen. Like tiny little people in her stomach were punching her innards with a vengeance. Like a particularly angry hive of bees had decided there was pollen inside of her, and were now trying to break in through the means of repeated stinging, boring holes until they created a gap they could fly through. The pain came and receded like waves on the beach, indicating that whatever anaesthetic they were using for her arm and eye were local, because hell if it was having any effect on the agony in her gut. Welcome to period cramps.

Sweeping the hair from her face with one hand, the other… nope never mind. Only one hand… she had to get used to that quickly or bad things would happen. Opening her eyes… no, eye. Opening her _eye_ a crack, she noticed that the depth of the room was destroyed since she had also lost the ability to see in one eye due to the incident with the magic eight ball. Ugh, she really should have seen through that. Pun unintentional.

The room she had awoken in was painted a pleasingly dark green, easy on her damaged eyes… not to mention the artist within her. A dark-red hardwood created panelling up to the middle height of the walls, with furniture in matching wood and a dark parquet floor. An immense grandfather clock rested against one of the walls, filling the room with a soft tick-tock that filled her with an incredibly contradictory mixture of serenity and apprehension, however that worked. The chair she had been placed in was a vast armchair in similar green and brown-red hues as the rest of the room. In the centre sat a large mahogany desk with several organised clumps of paper stacked high, a dip pen along with other assorted stationary, and a strange white bowl filled with dark little sweets in the shape of Scottie dogs. Bluh, she hated those little rats.

Odd, for such a room to be in T.R.O.L.L. Something just seemed terribly off, but she could not quite figure out for the life of her what it was; probably because the soft tick-tock was calming her a great deal more than it should have been. Perhaps that was a side effect of the drugs pumping through her system.

"Please, feel free to help yourself to a liquorice. I my self are rather partial to such sweets." At the sound of the smooth American accent, Vriska turned in her seat, only to find that the high back hid the person who had entered. Instead, she looked back at the bowl on the table. Ugh, just her luck. Free food, and it was something she did not like.

"I don't like liquorice." she said, and pushed the bowl further away from her.

"Then I apologise. I shall be sure to use a different sort the next time we speak." Who was this? And why were they so concerned over what sweets she liked for heavens sake? Surely what with the kidnap of dozens of children, they would care little for something as insubstantial as getting the right sweets.

With a soft sigh from the velvet of the chair, the man behind her sat opposite to Vriska on the other side of the desk. He wore an immaculate white suit, and underneath this, a green shirt and bow-tie. Yet that was not what shot the warning signals to her brain. On his head, or rather where his head should be, was a giant white orb.

"Uh…" Then with a quick self-berate for sounding like Tavros, Vriska said, "What's with the headgear?"

"This? I beg your pardon for any inconveniences, but it is to prevent you from controlling my actions with your abilities."

A flicker of fear passed through her stomach. "What are you talking about?"

"Come, let us not spend an hour debating useless matters," the man chuckled in a good-natured fashion. We have been watching you all closely while you inhabited the village arena, and we have all taken a certain amount of interest in your abilities. You are able to control others actions merely by looking them in the eye. Astonishing!"

"Thanks?"

"You are quite welcome, my dear. Now then, the reason that I had you brought to my office is simple. We have found a small… complication on your treatment plans."

"What?"

"While your talents are certainly extraordinary, they are not enough to cover the treatment costs of growing you another fully functional arm. The more one has to grow, the more it costs. Although if these powers further develop, then you may be in for a chance at another human arm as we will be able to create a profit from them," The man paused to adjust the odd white orb atop his head before continuing. "Well, that is all I wish to speak of. You may leave now. And send Mr Zahak in on your way out, if you please."

Vriska rose from the chair and turned to where she assumed the door would be (since, you know, being brought into a room when you're unconscious tends to leave one a little disoriented), and left. Outside, her one working eye complained at the harsh lighting that suddenly met her, made worse by the reflective white walls surrounding her. When her vision returned, she noticed Equius sat by the door looking disgustingly sweaty, and said, "Hey, you're next, clammy."

With a nod, he got up and went into the room, but not before saying, "You should probably find something to cover yourself with."

Looking down at herself, she discovered that she was wearing nothing more than underwear and a hospital gown. Perverts. Well, that would explain why that Equius bloke was sweating all over the place.

Within seconds of standing uselessly in the hallway, a doctor appeared.

"Come with me, Ms Serket." he commanded, and without checking to see if she would follow, began to march down one of the corridors. Not wanting to get lost, she went along him.

After a couple of minutes, she broke the silence, "So do you have GPS in your head or what?"

The blue-blooded doctor stopped and turned to look at her. "Excuse me?"

"As in, is there a micro-chip implanted in your thick skull that allows one to know their directions in this maze." she said, slowly and sarcastically. "Or would you like me to phrase it differently again?"

"Ah. The drugs must be making you bad tempered."

"Not really." Vriska shrugged. "So where the fuck am I?"

"You would do well to clean up your language, Ms Serket. We are cerulean-bloods. We have an image to uphold!" he sighed as he guided them down another corridor, each as featureless as the last.

"Oh, you're one of those weird ones aren't you?" she snorted. "You guys make me almost embarrassed to be a blue-blood sometimes."

His neutral expression was beginning to look strained when he opened a set of double doors and said, "We have arrived. If you should need to contact me, ask for Dr Kajeor."

With a gentle push into the room, the doors were shut once more and she found herself in another green room. The walls were the same dark green, yet there was none of the hardwood panelling in here, and the floor was a faux-wood linoleum. Two tables sat side by side, with long benches on either side as seats, and on these most of the mutants that had fought for places in the establishment. Quickly spotting Tavros and Sollux, she headed for their table and took a seat next to the disabled boy, noting the folded up wheelchair propped up on the wall behind him.

"Missed me?" she grinned, amused by Tavros's flushed expression at the extent of back and leg shown by the hospital gown, although a few of them were wearing such outfits, well, Feferi and Tavros anyway.

"Thit, thought we got rid of you." Sollux drawled, fiddling on his iPhone and looking cut off from the world.

In the voice of the cerulean-blooded doctor, Dr Kajeor, she laughed, "Quite sorry, but no."

"Wriska? Wwhat the fuck are you doin' at our table?" Eridan demanded as he approached the table that held Group Eight and Feferi, also in a hospital gown as he sat. Vriska noted with a small amount of appreciation at his nice body.

"Sitting, I believe." Vriska smirked. "You, fish boy?"

"Fish boy? Wwoww you're runnin' out a' ideas."

"Eridan." Feferi said in a warning tone.

When the boy said nothing further, Vriska sneered, "'Atta boy, Eridan."

"_Quiet_!" The head guard had returned, along with the remainder of the children. Kanaya was the last to sit at their table, seating herself with an elegant fold opposite Vriska. While he wore the same outfit as before, and the same generally hard expression, there was an undercurrent of pride. "Now that we are all here, I would like to congratulate you on surviving. That all twelve of you managed to beat the others off is a great achievement.

'Now then. From now onwards, we have a new schedule for you all. Groups Seven and Nine have been grouped to form the Blue Team, and groups Eight and Ten will be the Red Team. Now then, it is currently one in the afternoon, so after lunch, you shall have a brief tour of the area, and after that you will be splitting into your four groups once more for some training. Now then, do we have any questions?"

Vriska raised her hand, "When can I get some decent clothes again?"

* * *

><p>Your name is Kanaya Maryam.<p>

Unlike many people your age, you have taken a shining to LANDSCAPING. You had cultivated a lush oasis around your home, and in particular, honed your craft through the art of TOPIARY. You have embraced the tool of this trade, which is CONVENIENT since this is the weapon you FOUND FIRST upon entering the village. Almost as if it was PRE-PLANNED. But that's silly.

You are one of the few humans with JADE GREEN BLOOD. As such you are one of the few raised by the VIRGIN MOTHER QUEEN, another jade-blood who has sacrificed her position to raise you. A position which involves the careful and delicate processes of PREVENTING HARMFUL MUTATIONS from entering the gene pool. Oh the delicious irony.

Another thing you enjoy are tales of RAINBOW DRINKERS and SHADOW DROPPERS and FORBIDDEN PASSION. You are also are one of the few that have developed a zeal for FASHION and DESIGN and LIVELY COLOURFUL PATTERNS. You are a SEAMSTRESS or a RAGRIPPER or a TREETRIMMER or a LUMBERJACK, whichever you care to be.

Most of the people in your home town of Moscow are too busy with their RADIATION SUITS in case of stray radiation sneaking in from the bombs. But pish posh. That's a load of RUBBISH and so you made an effort to LOOK GOOD before you were taken away. However, they were not the ones carted off because of a blotch of grey skin appearing on their cheeks, so MAYBE THEY WERE ONTO SOMETHING THERE.

Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** I've finally caught up with Homestuck updates! So I know you'll probably be thinking 'what were you doing writing a fanfic before you'd caught up?'. Uh, can't say I've got an excuse for that!

And as someone pointed out, one of the more recent updates mentions the imperial condense trying to introduce the blood caste system into humans. So, uh, I did a little freak out. I doubt that the Hussie has read this, lol, but if he did and is stealing mah ideaz… hehe. Also, even more oddly, more of the ideas I was going to use for this have appeared in recent cannon. Crazy!

So yeah, final thing. The names for most of the OCs in this are quite literally me typing out two random sets of six letter words, as to keep with the name rule thingie XD

And thank you for reading! ^^


	12. An eye for an eye and a spinal chord

Lunch was a simple affair, made up of some chicken soup and rolls of soft white bread. Ordinarily a number of them would have commented on how rubbish it was. Yet for the twelve mutants who had eaten nothing but cold, tinned food for the past few days it was comparable to eating ambrosia at the table of the gods. For groups eight and ten, they ate at a fairly relaxed pace, with Eridan making an effort to eat elegantly as to show off his caste and how he was better than them. This did nothing to offset how silly he looked in a hospital gown. Meanwhile, on the table composed of the Blue Team's members, all were wolfing their food down and demanding seconds within minutes of being served.

Despite any airs and graces he was trying to show, Equius was not succeeding as Eridan had at eating nicely, although no one noticed as his table was a little preoccupied with the food before them. In addition to his soup and bread, Gamzee had a bowl set before him of a strange, gelatinous, green substance which he called 'fucking miracles, bro.' when asked. Whatever it was, though, it did not look like it should be eaten.

After her third generous helping of soup, Aradia dabbed at the corners of her mouth with the edge of her sleeve, making sure that there was not anything on her face. Nepeta too ate unnaturally sophisticatedly on her forth bowl, and the Parisian suspected that it had something to do with the scowling boy sat before her. Under all of the frowning, he was a little attractive, she guessed, but not really her type. She preferred guys that could take a joke… not that she really had much experience with the whole boyfriend thing. Looking up, she met Sollux's eyes across the room and quickly looked back down at her food once more, trying not to grin. Okay, this was getting silly.

Lunch ended after exactly fifteen minutes, and they were separated into their four groups once more. The head of the three doctors who had treated Group Seven met them in the dining room.

"Ms Leijon, Ms Medigo and Mr Zahhak. Please follow me." she said with a smile, holding the door open for them. Due to her yellow blood, at first Equius had tried bossing her around, to get her to let them out and so on. When she merely smiled at him and told him to settle down, he threatened her with violence, and still smiling, she pulled out a cattle prod and struck him in the neck with it, making him fall to the ground in pain at the electricity passing through his system.

On the one hand, Aradia could see why the woman had done it, given that he had threatened to hurt her if she did not show them the way out. But electrocuting him? A little far really. Yet it soon became clear why. Since they had been watching them all the entire time they were in the village, they knew full well about Equius's insane strength and so decided that the only way to deal with him would be to use brains against brawn.

The tour of the facility really was brief, as there were very limited places that they were allowed to go. First they were shown the rooms where they would train in, which looked a lot like a gym, with running, cycling and rowing machines, weights and weapons for combat and strange climbing equipment that arched overhead. They were told that the weapons they used for most of the time in the village would be the one they were trained with, except obviously for Equius this was not applicable. Another thing they were told is that they would be given help in discovering their 'abilities'… whatever that meant.

After this, they were shown once more to the medical rooms in case of an emergency (although the medic assured them they would not be roaming free in the hallways anyway). Finally, they met up with the other half of the Blue Team and were shown the area where they would sleep. It was a very strange room, with a floor space of three metres by two metres before they saw the beds they would be sleeping in. Like the capsule hotels that once occurred in Tokyo, the rest of the room was made up of six pod-like bed capsules. Three of these capsules lay next to each other a couple of feet off the ground, and then with another brief gap of wall, another three of these embedded into the wall.

"Girls on the bottom row, boys on the top." Group Nine's medic said. Then pointing to one on the top row, the mutants noticed that it seemed to be a lot more reinforced than the others, lacking the transparent window the other capsule beds had and instead donning a thick sheet of reinforced steel.

"The casing around your bed is inspired by that which they use to hold back meteors, Mr Zahhak. So your roommates needn't worry about you thrashing around in your sleep and pulling the whole place down." the Group Seven medic smiled serenely. "Now, to open them you press this button here and the door will swing open a little. From there you pull at the handle.

'There is a small area at the far end of your bedrooms where you can store your personal belongings. Bedtime is at nine pm sharp. You will be sent here and get in your individual pods, which will shortly be locked until seven am."

"Are we expected to get dressed in there?" Terezi asked, giving a sceptical look, or rather sniff, at the sleeping pods.

"I can assure you that it is possible. Now, each of you need to claim a space. To do this, simply place your hand on the button to open it."

Equius had no choice as to which pod was his, so with a shrug he stood before his space, with Nepeta claiming the space below him. Not particularly bothered, Aradia went for the closest space – the middle pod – with Gamzee above, and finally Terezi's pod was at the right and Karkat's over hers. The machine in the button gave a small hum as it shaped itself to the contours and whirls of the skin of their palm before the room fell silent once more and the doors to the pods swung open.

* * *

><p><strong>== Be someone claustrophobic<strong>

You are now Vriska Serket, someone claustrophobic

One would have thought that being a spider enthusiast would remove all notions of claustrophobia from someone's mind, as everyone knew that arachnids wedged themselves into the narrowest nooks and crannies, shimmied through tiny gaps in plaster and lurked in the spaces between walls, waiting for their prey to wander into their grasp. But Vriska could not do it. Nope. No thank you, not today.

When the fear had first developed even sleeping in her room with the door fully closed was enough to rid her of a decent nights sleep. Lifts were amongst the worst, with a little residual fear and worry still fluttering through her nerves whenever she went in one.

Vriska had once gotten into a fight where the end result was being forcefully squashed into a wheelie-bin. It had been humiliating, utterly degrading and after the tortuous four hours spent locked in the blasted thing, enough to create a phobia. Thankfully, though, since the event that had caused it when she was eight, she had learnt to control and suppress it fairly well.

While the sleeping pods were spacious compared to the bin she had been shoved in, at a metre tall, a metre wide and two and a half metres long, it was still not exactly a huge space.

'_Get a grip_,' Vriska lectured herself mentally as she eased her way into the pod. '_Stop being such a grub about this_.'

Sliding in on her back, she noticed the strange, slightly iridescent materiel that lined the ceiling. A computer screen if she ever saw one. Definitely that. To her left there was also an internet port, which although would be heavily restricted and monitored, should still be fairly amusing. Vriska felt a little uncomfortable in the heavily enclosed space, but as long as the door remained open she should be fine. Besides, she would have to sleep in here perhaps for the rest of her life, so she had better get used to it fast.

As if to spite her, the door to the pod suddenly snapped shut behind her and instantly she could feel her heartbeat begin to rise. With an aimed kick, she lashed out at the door, trying to get it to open again.

"Hey! _Let me out_!" she ordered loudly, hoping their cerulean-blooded medic would hear and take pity on her. They were of the same blood caste after all, but it seemed she was having no such luck. Vriska kicked at the door again and again until she was thrashing about. "LET ME OUT!"

Barely thinking, she began to claw at anything nearby, getting into a stable position before kicking viciously at the door again and again. Soon the door was opened and the cold medic from Group Ten dragged her out, slapping her around the face to snap her out of the fear.

"Please gain a hold upon yourself. You are a young woman, not a deer in the headlights." she said, letting go of Vriska suddenly, resulting in her dropping to the floor. A door quickly swung shut above her. "If you find yourself unable to return into there, then-"

"No." With her hands on her knees to brace herself, Vriska took a deep breath before standing again. "I'm going to try again."

And so she did. When Group Ten's medic tried to intervene, the blue-blooded doctor stopped her, communicating silently in that odd way that doctors do. Once the other mutants had settled in and gotten bored, she stopped, deciding that she had prepared as much as possible. It was not ideal, but she would simply have to bite the bullet.

The two components of the Red Team then split and went their ways, Vriska giving Eridan an ironically sappy wave before they turned off.

"This is where you will be training." their medic announced as they entered a vast room, with walls sliding up ten or twenty metres easily, before curving around to form a glass, domed room. Sunlight managed to reach them through the dust caked windows, softly sinking into their skin and it was a feeling that Vriska had missed while in the fake world of the village.

Racks upon racks of swords lay in the room, accompanied by a strange assortment of lances and many targets and dummies for practice. In the centre of the floor space, a woman sat, seemingly meditating.

She had horns.

She had actual _horns_. Beautiful swirling spirals coming from her head, coloured red at the base, then a rapid change into orange and another, final swap to a deep, rich yellow.

Vriska could not believe it. Horns? Seriously? With a hesitant movement, she felt the lumps on her head, and realised that there was a good chance that's what they would become. Horns.

"Hey." Vriska called out once the doctor had left. "Are you even awake?"

There was no response, as she continued to watch the swirling smoke rising from sandalwood imbued incense.

"Hello? Hey! I'm speaking to you! I said are you _fucking awake_?"

With an inaudible thunk, the final chunk of ashes from the joss stick hit the curved surface of the incense-stick holder. Now she was done.

"Are _you_?" they replied, and swivelled around to face them, still cross-legged. She was younger than they had initially thought, at no older than seventeen, with ashen grey skin and big red eyes. She bore an odd resemblance to someone, but at that period of time they could not figure out whom. Her hair was cut in a ragged bob, with two longer strands easily the length of her body. An odd hairstyle to say the least. In her strange, low voice, she told them, "I am going to be training you."

While her voice was low, there was nothing masculine about it, rather making her sound mature and classy when combined with her rich American accent.

"Show me what you can do, little bearcat." she said, a small grin adorning her face, although there was no humour to it.

Vriska returned this with her own smirk. "Are you sure you want me to? I'll ruin your little meditation session."

"Well that's a load of bull, kiddo, but you are welcome to try."

From the space behind her, she retrieved two long needles that seemed to be hair sticks… only far more deadly looking.

"Fetch a sword or knife, girl. You all balled up or something?" she asked. "Wouldn't want to kill an unarmed kid, as it would look a little terrible on my reputation."

As soon as Vriska's fingers tightened around the handle of an available sword, the woman leapt forwards, needles in hand, and slashed a notch of a cut across Vriska's forehead. This was soon accompanied by a knee to the stomach, which threw her to the ground.

Snarling, "Again," Vriska took the woman on again… and again, but no progress happened.

"Come on kid, don't be such a dumb Dora. I'm under specific instructions not to bump you off," she sneered, holding out a hand to pull the younger girl to her feet. "'sides, I'm supposed to helping these two as well."

With an ugly frown, Vriska accepted the hand and was helped up, standing upright once more.

"Now then, you, boy. I heard that your powers are the cat's pajamas. Prove it. Hit me with your eye-laser business."

"Uh… you realithe that I could kill you? Or are you jutht thuicidal?"

"I seriously doubt that you could kill me, kid."

Shrugging, Sollux slid the glasses up his face and turned towards her but… he just could not open his eyes.

"Before old age knocks me off, preferably."

He still kept his eyes screwed shut. Killing people, especially a low blood like him was something that he did not want to be doing. But before he knew what was happening, a pair of cool fingertips pried his eyelids open, and the optic blasts were unleashed, melting a hole through the glass and creating big globules of the now red liquid.

A bolt of pleasure shot through the woman's expression as she quickly shut his eyes, sliding the glasses back down again.

She patted his cheek patronisingly. "Well ain't that just the bee's knees." Then turning to Tavros, cocked her head a little, sliding the hair sticks through her belt while she said, "Can't see what I'll do with you."

"Probably, uh, not very much."

"Hmm." She marched over to the sword rack and picked a nasty looking blade. "I'm going to teach you the basics of sword play. Eyes, go practice on those dummies since you're incapable of trying to hit me. So. First step."

* * *

><p>Once the post-training dinner was done, Red Team were escorted back to their dormitory, and from there left to their own devices. Getting into the space without shrinking back from fear was an issue for Vriska, but it was done nonetheless. Once she was inside the pod she tried distracting her mind by lying on her belly for a while, playing simple games with her dice.<p>

As she had suspected, sleep did not come easily, and she tossed and turned frequently with no cure for the fear that danced across the surface of her mind.

While in a period of staring at the ceiling to bore herself to sleep, a small speech bubble appeared on the ceiling, confirming Vriska's theory that the entire thing was one big computer screen. However this was only one stage of the discovery. The other stage was actually answering what was presumably a message. Initially she tried to tap the icon on the ceiling with her fingertips, but that did absolutely nothing. It was then that she remembered the internet port lying innocently beside her.

Curling up onto her side with her back facing the port, Vriska delicately picked the end of the lead up in her fingers. She had originally planned to use her other hand to push the hair away from the access point as usual, but soon remembered her lack of left arm, and so sighed loudly, dropping the cable to shift the mass of hair from her upper neck. With a shudder that ran down her spine and out to her fingers and toes, she plugged the cable into the back of her neck, the metal end of it reaching into her skull and brushing lightly against the very edge of her brain. Instantly her body relaxed while her mind was shot into a sort of forced lucid dream.

Darkness surrounded the blue-blood's body; a dark so thick and heavy that she could not even see the tip of her nose. Before the dangerous hallucinations could grab her, she focused her mind and was catapulted into her homepage.

A strange land surrounded her with a vivid blue sea, purple and green foliage and a sky filled with maps. Vriska hadn't a clue how it made sense but it was the world that she had created, and she was proud of it, so whatever.

As expected, there were severe restrictions on the internet and she could do little more than chat to the other eleven mutants in their assemble, or browse the odd image on google. But the benefit was that her missing arm and eye were still in existence, giving her 20:20 vision once more. Wow it was a relief to be able to see properly again. Her sense of distance had been completely destroyed, and though she was loath to admit it, she'd had to rest her remaining hand on Tavros's wheelchair as they traveled around the retainment organization, lest she walk into something. It was funny in a way, as it had appeared that Vriska had been guiding Tavros, but in reality it had been the exact opposite.

The speech bubble popped up again, a strange symbol in its centre that was composed of a circle with strange horn like protrusions coming from the sides. It hovered in the sky before her and then transformed into a chat window at a mental command. A keyboard appeared in the air before her.

adiosToreador [AT] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]

AT: hEY, iS THIS vRISKA?

AG: Who else would have this name hotrod?

AG: Hey, w8

AG: adiosToreador... sounds familiar

AG: Did you FORP?

AT: uHH, wHY?

AG: Oh god, you ARE that adiosToreador!

AG: HAAAAAAAA!

AT: uHH, i UHH, dON'T SEE WHY THAT'S FUNNY,

AG: It's funny 8ecause I killed your character 8y shoving him off a cliff

AG: And I destroyed your real life legs 8y shoving you out a window

AG: Like it was meant to 8e

AG: ;;;;)

AT: oH, yOU'RE MINDFAND AREN'T YOU?

AG: Well done Sherlock!

AG: Any other revelations you would like to share?

AG: Or something else you should like to deliber8?

AT: nOT REALLY,

AT: i WAS ACTUALLY, uHH, lOOKING FOR aRADIA, i GUESS,

AT: dO YOU KNOW HER HANDLE?

AG: She pro8ably can't get online, 8eing a low 8lood

AG: And a maroon one at that

AG: W8 how are you on here?

AT: a LITTLE, uHH, kEYBOARD KINDA POPPED OUT, tHE POD SOMETIMES DOES WHAT YOU ASK IT TO,,

AT: aND THEN i USED THAT TO FIND PEOPLE TO CHAT WITH,

AT: i SAW YOU TRYING TO GET ONLINE WITH, uHH, USERNAME, sO i TYPED IT IN AND IT WORKED,

AT: iS THAT OKAY?

AG: OH, I'd assumed you'd somehow got a mind connection port installed since I last saw you ;;;;)

AG: Ha, as if you'd 8e that 8rave!

AG: That reminds me

AG: You know that woman in the training room?

AT: yEAH, uHH, wHAT ABOUT HER,,,

AG: Oh I don't know...

AG: May8e her fucking horns?

AG: ::::P

AT: oH YEAH,

AT: i, uHH, dIDN'T REALLY WANT TO,

AT: tHINK ABOUT IT, hONESTLY,

AG: Laaaaaaaameeeeeeee, toreadork,

AG: So you know what this means, right?

AT: uHH,,

AG: Don't you just 'uHH,,' me

AG: It MEANS there's a high chance that we're gonna get horns too

AG: ::::D

AT: hA, i, uHH, sURE HOPE i DON'T GET,

AT: aNYTHING TOO BIG,

AT: :)

AG: True that

AG: 8ut there's nothing we can do a8out it

AG: We're in f8's hands now

AG: So she'd 8etter not 8e a huge 8itch a8out this

AT: bLUH BLUH, hA,,

AG: 8esides, I wouldn't worry a8out that hotrod

AG: You don't seem to do 8ig!

AG: ;;;;D

AT: :/

AG: I mean, if your shoe size is anything to go 8y, I feel sorry for any future girlfriends you may have

AG: Hahahaha MAY have

AT: wHAT?

AG: Or let's 8e modern here, any 8oyfriends, cause that Aussie guy seemed pretty interested in you

AT: wHAT, sERIOUSLY,,,

AG: I think you're missing the point here

Had there been a desk, Vriska would have hit her head on it in frustration, but as there was not she had to settle on smacking herself in the face with her palm. Who even was that dense? Other than Tavros, obviously. Sensing the irritation bubbling up inside her, the mental island she was on began to grow sunnier and warm, with the calming scents of incense and freshly cut grass being released into the air. And it worked. After a couple of deep calming breaths, Vriska was ready to get back to the conversation.

AG: I was making a ja8 at the size of your...

AG: You know what, never mind. And no, the Aussie doesn't like you as far as I know, I was making it up

AT: tHAT'S, uHH, a RELIEF,

AG: Why?

AG: Lemme guess, you don't play in that ball court?

AT: uHH, iF YOU'RE TRYING TO GET AT,

AT: tHAT i'M NOT GAY, tHEN YEAH,

At this a strange feeling of relief passed through Vriska, although it was so small that she did not consciously pick it up.

AT: i MEAN, i'M SURE HE'S A NICE GUY,

AT: bUT, uHH, yEAH, i DON'T PLAY IN THAT COURT,

AG: Even YOU could do 8etter than a stoner ;;;;)

AT: tHANKS, i THINK,

AG: Hey

AT: wHAT,

AG: Can you sleep?

AT: wELL, uHH, nOT REALLY,

AT: sINCE i'M SPEAKING TO YOU, aT THE MOMENT,

AG: ...

AG: Why do I even 8other?

AT: nO, i CAN'T,

AT: i, uHH, hAVE DIFFICULTIES GETTING, tO SLEEP,

AG: I noticed that while we were in the village

AT: yOU, uHH, dON'T LIKE SMALL SPACES, HUH,

AG: I'm fine with them. What 8re yo8 talk8ng a8out?

Shit, those extra eights only snuck into her typing when she was flustered. He must have noticed... Ugh, it was so embarrassing. Vriska needed to get over her phobia and she needed to do it fast. Especially if she was going to have to sleep in this tiny, bloody pod each night for however long they would stay here.

AT: i'M NOT COMPLETELY, uHH, dENSE,

AT: yOU KNOW, sO WE CAN MOVE ON,

AT: iF YOU WANT TO, tHAT IS,

Ordinarily she would have shrunk away from someone holding out an assisting hand to her, but at that moment in time she was so desperate to move on that she willingly took this assistance. 'Ugh, why did I even bring sleep up?'

AG: 8luh, I'm staaaaaaaarving

AT: yOU HAD, uHH, fOUR SERVINGS OF DINNER,

AG: Hey! I'm a growing girl!

AG: 8esides, it's not like I 8 that much for me

AT: gOOD TO KNOW YOU, uHH,

adiosToreador [AT] was disconnected from trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]

– It is now bedtime. You may no longer access the internet.

Well, she should have seen that coming really. They had been speaking for a while. Still, she would have liked to know what Tavros was about to say...

Mentally disconnecting, a small machine in the plug that was accessing her brain pushed away from her skull enough so that she awoke. Easing it out again, Vriska slotted the cord back away into its hole before shifting to lie flat on her back. In the few days that they had spent in the village, Vriska had gotten completely used to having someone sleeping next to her, and so sleeping alone was odd, to say the least. Tavros was a pretty good hot water bottle, and on the colder nights it was not unknown that Vriska would press her back against his to leech some of his warmth. She would have done the same to Sollux, but he was a light sleeper (unlike the former who slept like a log) and so when she tried it on him he decided she was an attacker and punched her in the face, leaving her a nice bruise. She did not try that again on him, needless to say.

With Vriska sat inside, the pod had warmed up pleasantly, although she still slid beneath the warm duvet, pleased to discover that there was a grid of miniature heaters within the fabric that did wonders for her period cramp.

_'Just close your eyes and don't think about the lack of space_,' she told herself. _'What would Mindfang do_?'

When she finally settled to sleep, her mind was filled with nightmares of having to force her way through tiny gaps in the ground, getting stuck and slowly realizing that the air would run out and she would die. Walls and floors closed in all around her, leaving only a ceiling letting down glorious light that warmed her, and yet she knew she would never reach. The space below her slowly began to fill in with bodies, all with gormless, dead expressions on their faces as blood drained from various needle marks on their skin, their stubby nails gouging cuts and gashes into her golden skin.

Vriska awoke with a scream, terrified of being trapped and alone, and found herself imprisoned again. As before, she began to thrash and scream; trying to get out of the tiny room she had been left in.

"Let me out! Help!" she yelled, kicking at the walls and ripping the sheets in her frantic panic. She then did something she had not done in a while: she began to sob and cry out for her mother. "_Mum! Mummy! Mum, help me! Help! Mummy, god, help!_!"

With a gentle sigh the door opened and Vriska all but leapt out. Someone was waiting just outside for her and quickly pulled her into the comforting hug of a parent. She was swept onto their lap and offered a shoulder for her to hide her face on as she bawled in fear. After all, she was only fourteen, and the nightmares she got had always scared her senseless.

"Do you feel better now?" the mystery person asked softly as she wiped her nose on the back of her hand. It had been the cerulean-blooded medic, Dr Kajeor, who had cauterized her wound while she was passed out. A kind, understanding look filled his eyes as he brushed the hair from her face.

Merely nodding in response, as she was a little dazed, he continued, "We shall keep this between the two of us, okay? As I should not really be allowing mutants out of their pods, and I am certain that you should rather not disclose your claustrophobia to the rest of your team."

"Uh… sure. Okay," she replied having found her voice and quickly pulled away from the man. "But then why did you let me out in the first place if you're not supposed to? Pretty fucking redundant if you ask me."

"I have a daughter a little younger than you, and you remind me of her." he smiled. "I could not leave you in there while you were so obviously terrified."

"So you're only being nice to me because I remind you of your kid? Wow thanks." Vriska snapped, embarrassed at having been so weak around the doctor. After a quick check of the stub of her arm, incase the work he had done to stem the bleeding was disrupted with all of her movement, he left the room with a final pat on the shoulder.

It was only after he was gone that she realized they had been sitting in Tavros's wheelchair. A small grin pulled half her mouth upwards as she realized that it must have taken Tavros far longer to get into the pods that the other mutants… and then it froze. Since it took him longer to get into his pod, he may well have seen her having her first 'freak-out' about the cramped conditions of their sleeping spaces. That's probably how he knew of her claustrophobia, she decided with a frown.

Well, she would simply have to make sure he would not tell anyone, and frankly since it was Tavros as opposed to one of the other mutants, she should have little problems there. A dash of threatening with just a pinch of seduction and she would have him wound around her little finger. Besides, if that did not work then she could simply use her mind control on him. Simple.

And so it was with the feeling of relief that she slid back into the pod. She had something to use against both people who knew of her phobia, so all would be fine.

Vriska pulled the covers tightly around her body, trying to fend off the chills of the world outside the pod, and then remembering what the orange-blood revealed about the nature of the pods, hesitantly said aloud, "Change appearance of the walls to a hilltop at night."

As if by magic, the screens that made up the sides of her pod suddenly changed to create that looked like an arching sky overhead scattered with billions upon billions of stars. She quickly picked up upon the Scorpius constellation, which was pretty much the only one she knew, as her mother had shown it to her on star charts since she was very young.

The sound of crickets speaking back and forth began to fill the space and she soon lulled back into a calmer sleep.

* * *

><p>"<em>Bzzzzzzz<em>!" With a jolt Vriska sat up, trying to find the source of the irritating noise that woke her, and was welcomed to the day with a strong clunk to her head as her forehead met the ceiling. Damn, she had forgotten that the image of a hill was fake. A soft female voice announced, "You have three minutes to get dressed before the door opens."

For the first minute she merely sat in a semi-asleep daze, trying to figure out what had just happened, then realised that she did not want Eridan Ampora to see her in only her pretty revealing hospital gown again and quickly changed underwear before pulling the boiler suit, vest and shorts back on. Thankfully, they had been returned to her sometime in the night, and washed… although the orange, blue and lime green blood stains still stuck stubbornly on the fabric like trophies.

By the time she emerged from her pod most of the other kids were stood in the small floor space of the dorm, save for Tavros who was still struggling to get his useless legs through the trouser-legs for all to see, as the door had swung open despite his undressed state.

"Wwhat's wwrong with your legs, loww-blood?" Eridan sneered at him, sniggering at the rising orange flush on the Hispanic boy's face.

The hell? Tavros was Vriska's territory! And damn it all if she would let the weird hipster mess with him, so she stood in front of the open pod with her back to Tavros and a taunting smirk on her face, blocking as much of him as possible.

"Didn't know you were into watching guys getting changed, shit-for-brains." she said.

"She has got a point, Eridan. Why _w-ere_ you looking?" Feferi pouted, a teasing tone to her voice.

"B-but… I-I… uh…" the hipster spluttered before glaring at Vriska and turning away. She gave a triumphant flick of her hair.

"Hey, you almost done in there, hotrod?" she said. While she was going to defend him a little from Eridan, she made no such promise of being nice to him herself. "Because I'm getting veeeeeeeery bored standing here."

"Oh… uh…" From behind her she heard the sound of the boiler suit's zip being pulled up and his voice once more. "Could you maybe, uh, help me out, please?"

Rolling her eyes, Vriska turned and pulled the boy out, lifting his small frame with ease in her arms and dumping him in the wheelchair, but not before bumping into it a little due to the lack of an eye. The members of Group Ten gained understanding looks on their faces as they finally understood that Tavros was paraplegic. That explanation made a lot more sense than the whole 'I'm, uh, easily worn out' bullshit.

Red Team left as a collective unit and took the long walk to the main room, which also served as the dining room. On their journey they passed the vast central area of T.R.O.L.L, a strange square pit with balconies running around the edge. The bottom of the pit was not visible, but Vriska could have sworn that she saw a long white tentacle rising from the darkness as she passed by that morning. Tightening her grip on the handles of Tavros's wheelchair, she forced the group to go faster, ignoring the confused looks of the mutants and two lead medics as Tavros merely gripped the handles and accepted that there was little he could do.

"You gonna, uh, explain?" he asked, turning around in his seat to attempt a glimpse at her face, but he could not twist far enough and so gave up.

"What do you think, toreadumbass?" Vriska snorted. He remained silent for the rest of the journey.

When they arrived at the main room, Blue Team were already seated and ready to eat. The rest of the mutants quickly sat down, with Vriska plonking Tavros on the bench ungracefully from his wheelchair before sitting herself. Breakfast was porridge with a little sugar sprinkled on top, accompanied by a glass of milk and a banana. Unlike with dinner, there were no second, third or indeed forth helpings to be had, and Vriska was told off for being so greedy.

"I can't help the way I'm raised," she told Group Eight with a grin. "If I like the food, I get seconds. If I don't like the food, then I get a smack around the head for saying so."

"Well that explainth your pthychotic attitude: you were thmacked one too many timeth around the head." Sollux snickered, and then received his own smack around the head. He returned this gesture with a jab in her sides with his elbow. It was only Kanaya's incredibly patronising eyebrow raise that stopped them descending into a light-hearted fight.

They split off for their training sessions, and Group Eight found themselves passing the pit once more. Again, Vriska made sure that they all hurried by feigning impatience to get their training over with. The cerulean-blooded medic showed them the way, as Group Eight could not remember their way through the featureless corridors. Thankfully, the incident from the night before was not mentioned. When they arrived, the same woman that had been training them the day before was stood in the corner, giving the finishing touches to what looked like a metal teenage boy.

"Bearcat," she called while adjusting a final screw on the robot. "Pick up a sword, girl, and come over here."

Intrigued by what the woman could have, she headed towards the rack and picked up the nearest sword.

"Now, I've set it to 'novice' for the moment, because it would probably be best if you aren't dead," A mischievous twinkle lit the woman's eyes. "I'm not an appropriate opponent for you, I'm too good at this, so you will have to spar with this for the meanwhile," she said as she shook the robots shoulder. "Brobot activate."

"Brobot? What kind of an unbelievably shitty name is th-" And Vriska then found herself with a katana blade at her neck.

"I would suggest that you spend less time yabbering, and more time fighting." the woman smirked, backing off to a safe distance to watch Vriska get her ass handed to her.

The robot moved lightning fast even on novice setting, and Vriska frantically thrust her sword forwards the best she could to block the onslaught of attacks being thrown at her. The most experience she'd had with a sword stemmed from her fatal online role-play games, where she had been connected into the game by her internet mind-port. From this, she had learned a little bit of swordplay; enough to keep her from getting any major bruises anyway. But without her second arm she could not get any punches onto the robot, and her stereopsis was completely screwed, so the occasional attack hit her, although the Brobot made sure to only smack her with the side of the blade… usually.

Their strange waltz took them in circles as they alternatively attacked and defended themselves with the blades.

An idea suddenly struck her, although she would later realise just how stupid it was, and when their fight brought them closer together she brought her knee forwards and smashed him in the crotch with it. Being a robot, he was unaffected by this. Vriska, on the other hand, did not get off so lightly and severely bruised her knee and bringing her a lot of pain on top of all the wounds she had, distracting her long enough for the Brobot to hit his blade on the side of her head, knocking her to the ground. Her head hit the hard concrete floor with a sickening smack and she passed out.

**== Wow, you seriously need to stop passing out. Wake already, Vriska**

"Urgh." With a groan, Vriska sat up in the chair she was in, and could have quite happily smacked herself in the face from frustration.

"Good morning, Ms Serket. I take it you feel better?" The odd man with the white orb on his head was back.

"What is with all this grabbing of me when I'm passed out?" she snarled, quite fed up with waking in weird places. "Can't you just call me in or something?"

"We are not here to discuss how I wish to bring in those I wish to speak to. We are here to discuss your progress, and this seemed an appropriate time," he explained. "Now then, we both saw that today while your adjustment to your loss of eye and arm has been slow, you may well be able to fight as well as you had done before."

"It's only been a day since it happened," Vriska frowned, confused at how this man was already drawing conclusions. "How the hell are you gonna know how I'm going to adjust?"

"I am an excellent judge of character, if I do say so myself. Now then, are you aware of the fact that your groups will soon be put up on a leader board on progress and performance?"

"Obviously not."

"Well, you know now," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "The higher up he leader board you are, the more privileges you will have. It was not my idea, but the head of this facility decided it would be a good way to encourage enthusiasm for violence in you."

"So I'm guessing that to get higher up it, we're gonna have to beat the shit out of the other teams?"

"In essence, yes. You will be pitted against Group Ten at the end of the year, which is in a little over a month. Between now and then your group will have to train, and the victors from this will face the victors from the Blue Team."

"What… just so this boss person knows who the best fighters among us are?"

"Yes. They wish to find this out and make use of it." the orb headed man confirmed. Vriska leaned heavily on the heel of her hand and thought. With Tavros in their group they had no chance of beating Group Ten, what with their crazy chainsaw wielding team mate.

"Are we going to be together when we fight, or will it be one on one?" she asked.

"One on one. You will each be placed in bubbles, if you like, with the weapon you chose. Your strife-specibus."

"Are you allowed to tell me who I'm up against, or will your boss not let you?" the blue-blood smirked, trying to taunt the information from the man before her.

She soon found out that there was no point, as he replied, "Yes. It is Mr Ampora. Mr Captor will be put against Ms Peixes, and Mr Nitram, against Ms Maryam."

"Oh, we are so screwed," she groaned loudly. "And does that crappy policy about 'if one dies they all die' still count?"

"Of course. This has been put into action by a small capsule containing nanobots being placed inside your body."

With a frown, she said, "When did you do that?"

"The apparatus for it was placed in the food you were given whilst on the plane," Now that he mentioned it, she did remember a gritty part in her dried apricot. "When it encountered the lining of your oesophagus, it was programmed to burrow into the wall of your heart."

Gulping, Vriska massaged the skin over her heart and tried not to panic. So far, she was doing good with this task, so long as Mr cue-ball-head did not decide to say another super creepy sentence.

"So yes, once either one of your team mates die, you will all die. Meaning that it is imperative that you do well in these training sessions. I would also recommend that you tell your team mates that knocking out the other person counts as a win. If you can spread this notion to Group Ten then you could yet have a chance."

Vriska nodded at this information, understandably dazed at how she continued to have her life tied to such a pair of goofs.

"Now then. Have you any comments on the matter?"

"Yes," The usual strength in her voice came back as she looked the man in where she assumed his eyes to be. "I need you to get Tavros's legs back."

"I do not understand… he already has legs, does he not?"

"Don't play coy, shithead," she snarled, as she realised how deep in shit she was if Tavros would never be able to walk again. Kanaya would make mincemeat of him with little more than a flick of her wrist. At least with fully functional legs he had a little bit more of a chance against her. "What do I need to do to get his legs working again?"

"Well. There is an option which my boss has been interested in."

"What is it?"

"I am not sure how well you would fare from this, personally."

"Tell me at least."

"They believe that if they remove your eye, they will be able to extract some form of use from it, as it is typical that mutants with your type of mutation will begin to show signs of vision eightfold."

"But I've only got one eye left!"

Sighing, he said, "No, I mean the damaged one. And if all goes well, then we should be able to replace it with a completely normal eye grown from stem cells. We shall then use stem cell therapy to grow new neurones for Tavros's damaged spinal chord."

"I'm guessing you'd have to clone him, then?"

"Well, it would not be a true clone, due to the differences in mitochondrial DNA… ah I'm rambling. Excuse me. But yes, it would be a clone, as they do not store samples of the stem cells found in the umbilical chord for anyone below a teal-blood." the man rambled.

"Heh, I can't imagine him being okay about that. But this is not really about him."

"Oh?"

"He's a veggie, that's why I ate his soup for him at… no wait, you weren't there," Trying to remove the attention from her failure, she flicked her hair back over her shoulder and leant forwards. "So, can you do anything for this losing my arm bullshit, while we're at it?"

"You must understand that an arm is an entirely different kettle of fish to an eye."

"Really? I never would have fucking guessed," she said with an eye-roll. "I swear that eyes have all kinds of complicated shit going on inside them. Like rod cells and cone cells and stuff."

"Very good!" He sounded impressed by her. "That is not on your syllabus for your age, surely?"

"Well, naturally, I am pretty amazing like that."

"Now then, as I was saying, the costs of an arm are much higher than for a few nerve cells and a single, normal eye. For your eye, you could get either your arm and your eye, or Tavros's nerve cells and your eye. Which will it be?"

Vriska thought deeply. Her personality would have initially cried out 'eye and arm!' for she was a selfish person. But after some more thought she decided that the way to survive longest in this hellhole would be to get him his legs back, as Tavros would then be a little less useless, and would have maybe a small chance of surviving. Hell, maybe she could even teach him something about fighting!

"I'll swap my eye for a new one, and for Tavros's nerve cells."

"I was hoping you would say that. There is hope for you yet," His tone indicated that he was smiling at this, and so she shot him a one-fingered salute. "All that I ask for-"

"Other than my eye." she interrupted.

He sighed, "Yes, other than that, is that you get us a tissue sample."

"Huh? How am I going to do that? I think he'd notice if I plucked one of his hairs or something similarly lame."

"No. We will need a living tissue sample. Please excuse me for a second," He then pressed a button on a desk and asked for some equipment of some sort. "Now then, what we shall do is this. When we are certain that he has fallen asleep, we will wake you, and both of your pod's doors will open. You will acquire the necessary sample, and I shall call you in here, where you will deliver it to me."

"Wouldn't it be way easier if you just called him here to get it?"

"Where is the fun in that?" he chuckled. "No, quite beside from that matter, is that this has been your idea, and so it will be you collecting the necessary puzzle pieces for this to take place."

The door swung open behind her, and a man in a button up white coat walked in, handed two test tubes to Mr cue-ball-head, and then left. The orb-headed man then unscrewed one of the tubes and pulled a cotton bud out of it.

"Wipe this swab around the inside of your cheek, and then hand it to me."

"This is like year seven science all over again." Vriska grumbled, but did what he said nonetheless, handing him the cotton bud. He proceeded to place it back inside the test tube.

"If you could do just that with Mr Nitram, then we should have both of your parts ready before the middle of December."

He slipped the test tube into her palm, closing her fingers over it.

"And if he wakes up while I'm shoving some random bit of cotton into his mouth?"

With a smile to his tone, he said, "I'm sure you of all people will be able to bluff your way out such an event, Ms Serket."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** First up, a big thank-you to Harmoni on tumblr who wrote a lovely comment about this! You made my day! On a relatively similar note, does anyone know of other places I could post this? As I've noticed that quite a few authors post their fics on more than one site?

SO Tavros is a bitch to type as. Also, sorry for the pesterlog-centric chapter, but it was needed here, kind of? Also, for how long it was, and how Vriska-y it was...

Also, did I get claustrophobia right? Because I don't suffer from it at all, so this is all stuff I've gotten from my friends and their experiences x3

And quickly quickly, if anyone is wondering, there _will_ be TavGam in this, but it's gonna be entirely one sided, as any VrisKan will be in this.

And thanks for reading! ^^


	13. All of the shenanigans

**== Let us hear Vriska's shenanigans**

You are now Vriska Serket on the night of said shenanigans

At about two in the morning, a buzzing filled Vriska's pod – the reminder for her to wake up now that Tavros had fallen asleep. But she had not gotten a wink of sleep that night, too… well not_worried_, per se, but a little anxious at how she was going to get the cheek cells without him waking up. But then he did say that he slept like a log…

Reaching behind her, she opened the small door to the compartment that held her dice and the test-tube and collected the glass vial in her palm. As she moved it, the cotton-bud within made a dull thonk as it hit the glass, and for a second she wondered it anyone had heard it, then remembered that their pods were all soundproofed.

Sure enough, as Mr Orb-Head promised, the door to her sleeping pod swung open, and slowly, slowly she eased her way out into the small floor space before her. Above, the door to Tavros's pod also lay open, and she could hear his gentle snores from where she was stood.

'_Best to just rip the plaster off, Vriska_,' she told herself before planting her feet firmly on the bottom rung of the ladder to Tavros's pod. '_Ha, man this must have taken him ages_!'

Vriska tugged the back of her hospital gown down for the final time. She had been using it as a replacement nightie of sorts.

With an ungraceful 'oof!' Vriska slid into Tavros's pod, lying alongside the boy. At first, she wriggled about uncomfortably before realising that she was lying on Tinkerbull, and chucked the toy behind Tavros's back. Okay, so all she had to do was unscrew the test-tube. Check. Then pull out the swab. Check. And now to get a tissue sample…

Man oh man, she was quite literally lying face to face with him. This was as embarrassing as it was awkward, and even Vriska could not prevent a blue tinted blush rising to her face. This was very, very close. And there was very little space in there to begin with…

'_Get a grip_!'

Yes. It would not do to be getting flustered about something as insubstantial as being next to Tavros.

Just in case he awoke, she ordered the pod to make it look like they were in a vast castle made of cold, grey bricks. Spiders webs hung without abandon from all walls and the area reeked strongly of 'deserted'. A few cool currents of air even found their way into the simulation. Perfect. It would make the deception all the more believable.

"Return to normal after two hours." instructed Vriska, realising that if he awoke with the simulation still on, it would look suspicious to say the least.

'_No time like the present_.'

Sliding her fingers along his face, she stopped when her one hand cradled his jaw and slowly eased his mouth open a crack, just enough to sneak the cotton bud in. After a good swab, she began to pull the stick back out from his mouth… and then she noticed something. The snoring had stopped.

Vriska moved her gaze up his face and was met with a very sleepy, very confused Tavros.

"Uh…" His voice was low from having just woken, yet it still sent shivers of worry through her… but wait. She was Vriska Serket! Master of deception and trickery! Hell if she was going to lose this game to Tavros. He would not find out about the new nerve cells until after it was done, and that was the only way it would go.

She quickly popped the swab back into the test-tube, and tucked this under the elastic of her underpants. Tavros began to sit up in confusion, but before he could hit his head on the low ceiling, her words stopped him in his tracks.

With the sweetest, most unlike Vriska voice she could muster, she whispered, "Oh my!"

"Huh?"

"It appears Pupa Pan himself has come here while I was asleep! How exciting!" Well, she may as well have some fun while she was at it, she decided while cupping one side of his elfin features between her fingers, murmuring "And he is more dreamy and heroic than I ever imagined."

"Why are you, uhh in my pod, Vriska?" Tavros asked, a strong orange flush on his cheeks at her proximity.

"Pupa!" she chortled. "You truly are a silly goose! You have come here to speak to me. Honestly, what other reason would there be you stupid sack of shit?"

Oops, that was too aggressive, too much like normal Vriska. Well she would simply have to try harder.

"Well…"

"Don't you remember? We were going to play and dance and frolic! Your wits will surely join us in our gaiety!" Vriska assured him with a eerie looking grin. Damn, she had been going for innocent.

Tavros still did not look as if he was buying the whole 'this is a dream' rubbish. Hmm. He was smarter than he looked, and he was getting more awake by the second.

"Oh no, it appears Pupa has lost the use of his legs. There will be no frolicking in his young man's future," she sighed, her fingers teasing along the back of his legs… not that he could feel that, but he still looked pretty terrified at the thought of Vriska Serket trying to seduce him. Her face then took on a sly, alluring look as she followed the course of action that she had once seen in a fairly odd comic adaptation of Pupa Pan. "Unless…"

Vriska Serket knew Tavros Nitram before the whole T.R.O.L.L shenanigans via Fatal Online Role Play (so named because the nature of wounds given to the online avatars occasionally put interactive internet users into an irreversible coma, which did not stop anyone). The fact was that he was on the main opposing team to her Team Scourge of Vriska and Terezi, and so she knew full well that he had a love for the story of Pupa Pan, mainly due to his avatar wearing the stupid green get up of the main hero.

If she played this situation along the lines of the story, then perhaps he would think he was dreaming.

"Everyone knows that just a pinch of special stardust along with a happy thought will allow any boy to get up and walk again," She drew her face closer to his as she reached into an imaginary pocket… hopefully Tavros would not notice this particular bluff. "Young Pupa flies though the window of a fairy girl's pod, falls on the floor, and has trouble getting up like an enormous pansy. The fairy girl then helps him to walk again, and in return, he teaches her to fly. They fly out of her window together, and have magical adventures for many years thereafter.

'Don't you want to have magical adventures with me?" A taunting pout sat upon her face as she looked across at him then threw the 'contents' of her 'pocket' at his face. He simply lay there, unsure what to do with this weird girl lying way too close next to him and assailing him with made-up stardust. "But alas, you have remained as pathetic and useless as ever. The stardust did nothing!"

"Uhh, maybe because it's jus-"

Vriska covered his mouth with her hand. "_Or_, it could just be because you failed to have happy thoughts!"

"Uhh…"

"And so my duty is clear. I will have to _make_ you have happy thoughts." Vriska then grabbed Tavros by the front of his vest and kissed him smack on the lips. What a waste of a perfectly good first kiss, but this had to go right and so sacrifices _must be made_. But as it turned out, he was a pretty good kisser, not that Vriska had any comparison. In fact, she was rather enjoying herself until the poor boy had a minor freak out, moving backwards so sharply that his back bumped the projection's wall with a loud thud… although his legs did not really follow him and stayed where they were before, creating a very awkward position for him.

"V-Vriska? What, uhh, are you, well, uhh…"

"Don't get your pants in a twist, Pupa." she smirked, still holding onto his top, a part of her hoping that he would come back for more… but he did not. His expression was heavily flushed and covered with a strange mixture of a happy daze and uncertainty.

Vriska did not take rejection well, especially after the 'whole-John-fiasco' as Terezi liked to call it (he had not emailed her back after meeting on holiday). She placed her fingers on her temples and stared him in the eye, connecting their minds and making him grab her around the waist and pull her towards him. Unfortunately for Vriska, though, when he kissed her a second time she was completely unable to focus on her mind-control powers, so with a small huff she gave up.

This made him even more confused. Was she actually _wanting_ him to kiss her after all the teasing he had endured from her?

"S-sorry, I, uh, don't really know, uhh, what's going on right now."

"Just shoosh and lie on your back, Pupa," Vriska instructed, which indeed he did. She then proceeded to get into a more comfortable position, lightly curled up with her head resting on his chest. Hopefully that was suitably out of character for her so that he suspected this was not the real world. His heartbeats were endearingly speedy, and did not show any signs of slowing down… not that hers were doing much better, but Vriska was not about to admit to that. "And let me tell you about all of the adventures I had before you got here."

Shuddering internally at how close they were, for Vriska was never one for close physical contact, except when for bugging other people, she began a strange story that she made as odd and dream-like as possible. She even wove in a little from her latest dreams.

"Once upon a time, there was a girl called Vriska Serket who lived in a massive castle. Except she was no ordinary girl. She was the sole heir to Marquise Spinneret Mindfang's empire, a fearful pirate that sailed the seven skies of the Alternian nebula. And she was an alien, with freaky grey skin and a huge pair of horns," Vriska murmured, spinning the story as she went and trying her best not to snort at how outrageous it was. "After her mother died, she was raised by a huge cave spider that ate dead boys and girls, which she had to harvest. She would also have to survey her vast and magnificent kingdom with the added worry that the son of a rival pirate may try to kill her for her land. But that was never going to happen, as said son was a wimpy, needy little grub. Anyway, so she had to patrol the borders to make sure no one would steal her rightful property, on top of catching children for her adoptive mum to eat.

'So, one day while trying to capture a particularly juicy looking kid, she merely paralysed him. The friend of this boy was not too happy about that, so she summoned a plague of monsters that would simply follow her, never getting more than a couple of metres close to her. Instead they would just watch her constantly, whispering things and making her generally paranoid."

As she carried on with this strange story, the hand that had found itself fiddling with the ends of her hair stilled, and her voice grew quieter and slower as the words turned jumbled. Within a few minutes of each other, Tavros and Vriska fell asleep.

* * *

><p><strong>== Hey, so what about that mentor Group Eight had?<strong>

We assume you mean Ms –_name censored_– thus you are now Ms –_name censored_– although you cannot actually _be_ her, merely watch from afar

Tendrils of scented smoke danced and twisted around each other in the dead, still air. Rising to reach for the ceiling high above with no disturbances. Yet the display was seen by none; the recipient of the incense sitting with their eyes closed, mind deep in concentration. So deep, in fact, that she did not notice the door opening behind her until a hand reached out to tap her on the shoulder.

"Handmaid?" they said, unable to see the frown that marred her face at that name.

"Yes?"

"She wishes to speak to you about your ancestor. We are experiencing… complications, as it were, in our planned course of action."

"How so?"

Evidently this messenger had not anticipated the Handmaid having questions, for it was a while before they responded with, "I am not qualified to disclose such information, apologies."

A long, slow sigh filled the space before the woman rose to her feet. She turned quickly once up, almost hitting the messenger with her horns and despite the almost-accident, held her head up high.

"Well, we had better get going then, no?"

"Right this way, Madame Handmaid."

Many of the errand-boys of the retainment organisation had small trackers in their minds, telling them which way to go so there was only the barest chance they would get lost.

Upon entering Her room, the Handmaid was greeted with a leering woman with disturbingly pink eyes and a mass of hair that made Vriska's mane seem tame. From her skull came a strange pair of horns that could easily have brushed the ceiling if She was stood up.

"I was wondering whether your had gotten lost, my little maid." She jeered, and the Handmaid's nails dug into to her palm in an effort to prevent herself from lashing out. There were very, very few people that could wind her up to anger-fuelled violence. The woman before her was one of them.

"It would essentially be impossible, Madame Dumb Dora." the mentor replied, doing a good job of holding back the snarl to her words. Then to keep their usual custom going, told Her her age, so She knew which version of the Handmaid she was talking to. "Seventeen."

"Pish posh. Completely irrelevant. Must I remind you of the reason I brought you here?"

"No."

"Well, it is always good to know that you are not getting old. You have been around for so many years, is all." A mocking pout passed across Her face before the expression turned once more into an amused, taunting look.

"Believe it or not, I still age." the Handmaid reminded, her words as cold and carefully chipped as ice.

"Oh I know that very well. I had one of your older incarnations demand something foolish just an hour ago. She seemed in the quite the tizzy, but I could not simply give her top secret files on a certain mutation."

The spiral-horned woman's interest was grabbed. "What was she asking for?"

"I do believe that is none of your business, my little lackey. Now as to the reason you were summoned: your ancestor's progress is too slow. For someone with her abilities she should have begun the proper training for it already. So I feel that perhaps a more… head on approach is required."

"And why is it you feel the need to yabber about this to me?"

With a cruel grin, She explained, "Because now her parents have been put down, _you_ are the closest thing she has to family."

"You slay me." the Handmaid said in perhaps the driest way possible. She was not in the mood for this woman's frankly appalling sense of humour. The handmaid needed further practice on how to get her powers under control, and if she was still skipping around (if she believed that She had said, that is) then clearly she had a little while to go.

"This girl in group… eight, was it?" She quickly rummaged in a drawer for the list, and flattened it with the palms of her hands on the smooth wood of the desk before reading. "Ah, no. Group Seven. You know of them?"

"The one with the quirky bird who's constantly narrating her actions and the big-six, right?"

"I cannot understand a word you say, as per usual. Here, a free tip. Try picking up the dialect of the time. Now then, back to our previous conversation. I know that a certain Doc Scratch is rather fond of this girl, and he is simply too powerful an ally to lose over such a trivial matter."

"And?"

"Thus, I need you to train our darling Ms Mindfang junior so that she is ready for my course of action."

"She is the same as Mindfang, correct?"

"To quote you from your more jovial days, my dear, ab-so-_lute_-ly."

"When have I ever been jovial?"

"Your twenty-two year old self is quite fun, I must say. Now, our younger Mindfang will be unable to defeat your ancestor without the use of her powers. The powers that are somewhat lacking at this place in time."

The Handmaid stood silently, thinking through the possible course of actions in her head. This woman was clearly wanting to kill her ancestor, and she was not quite sure how she felt about that. But she had little choice. There was no where else for her to go, and she owed Her a favour.

"Fine."

"Good." Her lips stretched thin over Her teeth, baring the glinting fangs held in her mouth. "Now. I have some interfering to do. Soon I shall be receiving a very important item, and if certain things are to take place, then I need to make sure one end of this deal does not occur."

* * *

><p><strong>== Wake, Ms Serket,<strong>

Something small and thin prodded Vriska in the side, startling her awake with a loud yelp. She turned to where it had come from, and saw a metal rod disappearing back into the side of Tavros's pod.

**- Comfortable?**

The message made a ding as it appeared on the ceiling, not loud enough to wake anyone, but certainly enough that Vriska noticed, and so glowered at the ceiling. While she could not say that she was _certain_ who sent it, she had a hunch that it was Dr Cue-ball-head.

Suddenly, she realised that the time was nearly half eight in the morning, and leapt up, only to smash the front of her skull on the ceiling. Still, though, the illusion of a castle had switched off, which was a plus.

"_Ow_! Fu-" she began to yell, but quickly put a cap on that before she woke Tavros. It was going to be hard enough passing this off as a dream without him waking up with her still inside. The door to his pod was still open, so she slid out through there, wondering whether there was any point in attempting to get the extra hours sleep – their wake-up alarm went off at half nine.

Shutting the door to his pod as silently as possible, she then crawled into hers and lay there, pulling the test-tube from where they tucked away and placing it in the compartment behind her once more. Vriska quickly decided that getting as much sleep as possible was a good tactic, especially when one is dealing with tricky people, for if she was to have her snark at full power, she needed to be well rested. But… now she could not get to sleep, and she had a sneaking suspicion that it was the lack of people within view. Even at home she always had her little sister sleeping in the same room, and with the sudden lack it was weird, as she had previously thought.

And god, that kiss.

'_What the actual fuck was I thinking_?' Vriska screamed mentally, then upon remembering the sound proofing, yelled, "_Idiot, idiot, IDIOT_!"

With her fists bunched into her mass of hair, she lay curled and twisted into her bedcovers, not wanting to move.

Regardless of how good her first kiss had been, there was still the fact that she was going to have to pretend it had never happened. What was she even doing? Tavros? She could at least have picked Sollux, who was probably the best looking out of Group Eight… although the orange-blood _was_ pretty cute- no. '_I am not going down this mental route_.'

Well, she was not about to get to sleep anytime soon, so she typed in Sollux's handle into the chat program (which she was pleased to note worked any time after eight am) and began to pester him.

arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA]

AG: Hey Sollux.

AG: Are you awake?

AG: 8ecause if you aren't I'll just pester you on here until the dings wake you up.

AG: Sollux.

AG: Sollux.

AG: Sollux.

AG: Okay, I didn't wanna do this, but…

AG: ofhiqjwoi

AG: ailfhoiwj

AG: awdio

AG: oiwjoqiwjd

AG: akehwqh

TA banned AG from trolling

TA: biitch

When the buzz to get people up finally sounded, it was a relief. Vriska was dressed and ready in under two minutes, resorting to finger combing her hair for what must have been at least a week. Perhaps she should get a hair brush, lest get dreadlocks.

The test tube was tucked away in one of the boiler suit's many pockets and she soon clambered out of her room, bare feet leeching the cool from the floor before her shoes and socks were pulled on.

"Hey," Sollux nodded, not looking up from his iPhone. "You look like thit."

"Thanks for replying, douchebag," Vriska grinned, then added in response to his previous comment, "Your glasses must be messing up your eyes."

"That'th kinda the point," He then properly looked at her, and after no more than a second of frowning, he stood and gave her head a good glance. "Your hornth have come through. They look ath weird ath thit ath well."

"What?" she cried, and ran her hand over the nubs on her head. Indeed, on one side of her head a tiny, fine horn of one centimetre tall and a bright yellow had emerged, and on her left, two points of the same height and colour. Weird.

"Tho, you're gonna have two hornth on one thide, and one on the other?" he snorted. "Man, that'th pretty fucking weird."

"Because you're not the captain of 'pretty fucking weird'?"

"Good morning!" Feferi chirped as she emerged from her pod. "Oh glub, you're getting horns too! This is all so exciting!"

It seemed that Feferi had forgotten her earlier qualm against Vriska in favour of the weird structures emerging from her head.

"Uhh, can someone help me out, please?" Tavros called, and Vriska elbowed Sollux, reminding him that it was his turn to get him out. He reminded her that she was the one who broke his back in the first place. Ultimately, Vriska got Tavros out.

This was a much harder task that it ordinarily was due to the loss of one of her arms. Thus, she had to rely mainly on her whole right arm, and rest him on the stump of the left as little as possible. It was tricky, but just about possible. Vriska noticed that while doing this, the boy did not make eye contact with her once, afraid to meet her gaze. Evidently he remembered what happened last night, and would probably ask her about it later no doubt.

"Am I too beautiful to look on this morning, or somethi- hey! You're getting them as well." Vriska announced as she noticed similar horns to hers, only his were made up of only one yellow point on each side. "Weird."

"When in close contact with other mutants for extended periods of time, the mutation processes speed up due to release of certain hormones. That is why we keep you separate at night." Dr Kajeor explained, listening in on the conversation as he opened the door. "Have you two been cuddling rather than training?"

"What the? No!" Vriska spluttered, and Tavros was certain that had she been typing, several eights would have snuck into her writing on account of the flustered blush rising to her cheeks. "Gross, not with this absolute moron. Yuck."

'_But kissing him smack on the lips is a completely different deal, obviously_. _Something I go back for as well_.' her inner monologue whispered, before the other half of her snapped back, '_Shoosh_!'

Wagglings of eyebrows and snorts of laughter ensued throughout breakfast, not to mention the call of 'Not bad!' from Terezi. They both ate their meal in near silence with a flushed glaze, until Tavros whispered, "You, uhh, didn't happen to sneak into my pod, uh, last night, somehow?"

"Don't you start as well!" Vriska grimaced. "Even if I could break out of mine, and then into yours in a night, why the hell would I _want_ to? You're fucking useless at everything and almost got us killed the entire time we were in the village. So why would I want to '_cuddle'_ with you?" The phrasing of his words then hit her, and with a sly grin, murmured, "Why? Having x-rated dreams about me and you, _alone_ in your pod?"

He made a few noises, but he was so flustered that the stuttering and the err-ing took over, and so she could not understand a word of it. After a few seconds of this, he simply turned away from her mocking gaze and looked down at his food. Not a further word was said, but Vriska noted how the Australian boy on the other table, Gamzee, was looking displeased at her actions. Wow, maybe he really did have a crush on Tavros. She gave him a sugary sweet smile before continuing to eat her porridge.

After a brief announcement from the head guard, they were set off on the path to their training rooms, and Vriska wondered when and if Mr Orb-head was going to corner her. It was only when they were about to commence training that an errand-boy stopped her from entering with the rest of Group Eight, demanding that she follow him. Guessing what it was about, she did as told and was soon brought to a heavy looking door made from a dark, glossy wood. A gold rectangle of metal was nailed to this door, with the name 'Doc Scratch' engraved into it. So _that's_ what his name was.

Knock, knock.

"Please wait a moment." the man called, and judging by the 'clink' of glass against wood, he was putting on the weird orb. Vriska decided to barge in anyway, as it could give her a chance at seeing the man's face.

A shock of abnormally pale skin was quickly covered by the white sphere, and as it was put on so quickly a small loop of glasses chain stuck out from the bottom.

"Did I not instruct you to wait?" he snapped irritably, adjusting the collar of his jacket. "Oh, never mind. Do you have the sample?"

"Obviously," Vriska said. "Didn't you see?"

"I have not got the clearance to view the cameras in the sleeping pods, even if I had wanted to."

Vriska's blood ran cold. Who _had_ sent her that message them? "So, it wasn't you who woke me up?"

"No. It will have been my boss. They like to keep a watch on all of you, especially when someone is undertaking a task for them."

Not certain as to whether that was more or less creepy than Doc Scratch watching her, she shrugged and tried to look nonchalant while drawing the test tube from her pocket.

"Here. A swab covered with Toreadork saliva, and a couple of cheek cells. Enjoy. How's my eye coming along?"

* * *

><p><strong>== Be the one with the chainsaw<strong>

You are now Kanaya Maryam, the one with the chainsaw

Well, as she had suspected, there was only so much that Kanaya's mentor could teach her on the subject of fighting with a chainsaw. When prompted, he decided to show her basic sword fighting moves, adapting them all little to fit the heavier and less easily wielded chainsaw. Yet these moves were quickly learnt and exhausted, so he set her exercises to improve her upper body strength, which would be needed if Kanaya was to use the chainsaw of all things as a weapon.

Okay, so she was fairly decent with a chainsaw, and it was pretty fun to use, especially when pretending to fight off hoardes of zombies. But when she thought about it… perhaps she should have taken the pistol that she had initially seen.

Casting her gaze over to where Feferi was stood, she watched as the girl hurled the trident at the moving target's chests and ripping it back from the fabric with ease, whirled around to stab another, slicing the dummy open to reveal the fluffy, white stuffing. There was a strange, almost feral grin on her face as she did this, and it was a pity that their mentor had not seen their display. It had been impressive.

Their mentor was a gunslinging man from the deep south of the United States of America. Kanaya occasionally wondered if he took pride in being a walking, talking stereotype for a Texan cowboy, but decided it would be best not to ask. The cowboy mentor's attentions were currently wholly focused on Eridan and the tutoring he was gaining for the Agar's Snozzpairs… ahem, Ahab's Crosshairs.

"C'mon, Kan! Lemme see you get up to one hundred this time!" the mentor called when he noticed the Russian stopping for a break. Kanaya seethed on the inside at his nickname, but decided to let it slip. It would not do to have the man angry at her if he was her only chance of getting any good with her awkward weapon of choice. Stupid Eridan making his nickname rub off onto their instructor. Stupid radiation making her grey… stupid jade blood removing her from her parents.

With a choice Russian curse under her breath, Kanaya resumed her press-ups.

One, two, three, four… five… six… ugh… seven…

'_Focus your mind on something else, and the task at hand will become far less noticeable_.' The words of her adoptive mother rang through Kanaya's mind, and she found herself missing her dreadfully.

Kanaya Maryam had been born to a young couple in rural Ethiopia. Honestly, no one had a clue how the jade-blooded gene found its way into a family of yellow-bloods, and her parents wished dearly that she had been born of any other colour so that they could keep her… but the fact was that they could not, and so the girl was sent off to Russia as quickly as possible. Although she was never told of her situation, Kanaya never believed that the Virgin Mother Queen she was raised by was her mum. Kanaya was black, and her 'mother' from New Zealand. But while she did not believe that they were of flesh and blood, she treated her with as much affection as she would her real mum.

Unlike most children of her age, Kanaya did not go to school and was instead taught genetics and the finer points of the modification of genes. How the radiation that still crept along the surface of the planet caused the mutations in the nucleotide base pairs of DNA, and how that changed all of the cells in the body. With what she knew now, she could quite easily be studying her first year at university.

But instead of helping humankind by blotting out these harmful mutations, she was doing press-ups. Ugh.

"Gather round." their mentor called suddenly, and relieved, Kanaya pushed herself to her feet and walked over. He passed them their lunches before instructing them to sit down in a semi-circle before him. "Since it's past midday now, I can tell you about this competition we'll be doing with you."

"Competition?" Feferi inquired.

"Please keep your mouth shut when I'm talking, Ms Princess."

The girl bristled at this, expecting Eridan to join her in the imminent huff, but he did little more than listen to their mentor with admiration. Huh? Kanaya watched the two of them from the corner of her eye, anticipating a minor domestic as soon as this group talk was over.

"You're gonna be fighting against Group Eight, and the winner of this will fight the victor from the Blue Team. Eridan, you're against Vriska, Feferi, against Sollux, and Kan, you're up against Tavros; if those names mean anything to you."

Man oh man, Eridan could not wait! This would finally be his chance to beat the shit out of Vriska without Feferi meddling with her shame and guilt-tripping.

Bugging and fussing and meddling.

Damn that Feferi, but hell if he would not listen to every word she said like an overly hopeful sap.

Something about that Vriska girl sparked hatred within him, though. He looked forward to this fight.

"Are we having to _kill_ them?" Kanaya asked.

"Course not!" the man laughed. "What use would that be? Just knock 'em out."

"That is good to hear. Although the endorsing of violence disgusts me if I'm honest." said Kanaya, yet she doubted that taking out Tavros would be difficult from a technical point of view. What_would_ be an issue is doing it on an emotional level. He was so pathetic that even looking at him in a withering way made the offender lose class points by the bucketful. Except not bucketful, because suddenly the word has become outrageously indecent and awkward to even _think_ about.

With a malicious grin, Eridan decided, "This is goin' to be easy."

* * *

><p>Your name is Aradia Medigo.<p>

You have a number of INTERESTS, namely ARCHAEOLOGY and it is a dream of yours to discover all of the ANCIENT CITADELS and LOST TEMPLES and DESECRATED RUINS. All of them.

Something you neglect to tell people is that SOMETIMES YOU HEAR VOICES. Especially recently. As in mutation recently. It's pretty damn WEIRD, but hey, that is LIFE.

Several months ago you began GOING GREY… and no, not your hair. Since your mother was the head MUTANT CONFISCATOR IN PARIS, you tried to hide, but she turned out to be OKAY WITH IT and helped you hide in your basement. But eventually you were FOUND and CONFISCATED by her colleagues, which sucked royal boondollars.

Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** THANK YOU SO MUCH for over fifty favourites and followings, and almost 100 reviews! Seriously, the support I'm getting for this is amazing, thank you everybody!

And THERE first kiss scene of the fiction, 78,000 words in. Oh yeah. Werk it. And sorry about how shit it is, I can't do fluff at all… *hide* But seriously, if was super lame, please tell me so the next bit of fluff is better xD

Final thing, I've created a livejournal for this, and a tumblr, for which both of the links are at the bottom of my bio. But I wanted to mention the tumblr specifically as I'll be doing little illustrations for each chapter, and perhaps character art and stuff, so if you're interested check them out c:

And as always, thank you for reading! ^^


	14. Make her pay

**== Hell, lets be Aradia**

You are now Aradia Medigo, and you are currently wondering what on earth it was you ate yesterday

Screwing her eyes shut and rubbing them furiously, Aradia looked once more at the lax boy before her. Okay, something was wrong with her eyesight, because usually when she looked at people she did not see a strange glow sitting in the crevice above where the collar-bones joined. This glow seemed to lie just below the skin, pulsing an lilac light through his veins that showed when they passed close to the surface. In conclusion, it was a hideously trippy experience.

"You okay, sis?" Gamzee asked, noticing that she seemed distressed. "You look like you just saw a motherfucking ghost."

"Je comprends pas!" she whimpered, before mentally slapping herself at the noise and straightening up. "Uhm, I mean, I don't get it."

"Don't get what?"

"Just… I think I need more sleep," Aradia sighed, holding a palm to the side of her head. "And maybe need to check what is in our food."

"Sure thing my savvy French sister." winked Gamzee before turning to catch up with the rest of his group. He was odd, but harmless enough and seemed pretty sweet. She hoped that she would not injure him to badly when it came to their fight.

Aradia copied Gamzee's catching up, and hurried to find where Equius and Nepeta had run off to with their creepy head-medic. Thankfully, Aradia had a fairly good head on her for directions, and memorised which way it was to get to their training grounds. Upon getting there she spotted her team mates, and to her horror noticed a similar navy pulse travelling through Equius's body, and a hot pink glow throughout Nepeta's veins.

What the heck even was this?

"Aradia!" Nepeta waved as she came in, the top half of her jumpsuit rolled down to her waist. This gave the Parisian a clear view of the pink glow sluggishly passing round Nepeta's circulation, and it was a view that Aradia did not need. Urgh! What was this? At Aradia's paling complexion, she added, "Wow, are you okay?"

"Je suis… I mean, I am fine. I just need some more sleep." dismissed Aradia, doing her best to ignore the faint glow coming from the girl before her.

"Purrhaps you're dehydrated?" she pondered, but Arasia shook her head. Unconvinced, but not wanting a huge argument, Nepeta said, "If you're sure."

Jogging with her eyes kept firmly forwards was a good way for Aradia to pretend the disturbing developments of late had not occurred. Her body and mind were so exhausted after the first two kilometres that she could not think about anything other than the exercise.

After the news that they would have to be fighting Group Nine, Aradia did not know what to do. The best tactic she could come up with (other than 'don't die') was to knock him out as quickly as possible. Perhaps by wrapping the end of her whip around his legs and tangling him up so badly that he fell over, smacking his face in the process and knocking himself out? That could work. His weapons were a pair of juggling clubs, which would certainly be deadly in the wrong hands. But if she could wrestle them away, she would be fine. And hell if she could imagine Gamzee of all people being violent! Ha!

From where she was jogging, she could hear Equius's grunts as he did his push ups. Last time she checked, Nepeta had been sitting on his back for a challenge, yet he barely seemed to notice the extra weight. Strange boy. Or maybe just STRONG.

"Okay, come over here, please. We need to practice our sparring skills. Aradia, you too."

Their mentor was a soft spoken blue-blood from New Orleans; the same blood class as the Scotsman. At first glance, she did not look very violent or threatening, although looks were deceiving and she managed to defeat Equius within a minute with no more than a short expanse of rope. Her tactic was to dodge his violent swings and try to get behind the boy. Once she managed this, she leapt onto his back and throttled him until he conceded defeat.

"The first thing we need to acknowledge is that the mentor for Group Nine is going to work out your weaknesses and use them against you. Equius," She turned to the Scotsman with a dour look. "Equius, while you are tremendously strong with your fighting, you lack speed and defensive skills. From what I have heard, Terezi Pyrope is exceptionally fast and good with a staff. Her friend from elementary and high school is here with her, however. You could attempt to get information from Vriska about her techniques. Although she will probably be unresponsive.

'Now, Aradia. Oh, you don't look very well, my dear. Well, you can sit the rest of the half-session off. But next session I want to see you work on your defensive moves as well as Equius, and to improve upon close-combat and weapon-less fighting. You and Equius will spar after lunch," she said. "And Nepeta, you need to work on your one-on-one combat. You tend to ambush people as a means of attacking, but in the arenas we will be using, there will be no obstacles, only floor space. And very little floor space at that. Karkat, as far as I can tell, is relatively good at fighting one-on-one, but either way his level is higher than yours. Anyway, I'll fight you for that. Any questions?"

"Nope," Nepeta replied, who rather liked their mentor and was excited at the prospect of sparring with her. "When can we get started?"

Smiling, the mentor chuckled, "Now."

Aradia sat down, drew her knees up to her chest and promptly face-planted into the recluse of her legs. The cradle of her limbs created a small zone of warmth and she sat there quite happily for a period of time, composing her thoughts. A soft thud came from her right as someone sat down beside her.

Peering through the gaps in her fringe, she was a little surprised to see Equius sitting next to her, trying his best to look casual… which was not very casual at all. Her nose wrinkled involuntarily at the smell of sweat rolling down his skin. Well, he _had_ just been lifting weights, so Aradia guessed that it was expected that he would perspire. But he sweated almost all the time. Puberty was not being kind to him so far.

Navy danced under his skin, and Aradia was temporarily entrapped by this, before blinking a couple of times and meeting his eyes, or rather, where they will have been behind the tiny sunglasses.

"Oui?"

"I, ah, need to speak to you, Miss Medigo," To his horror, Equius found himself stumbling over his words a little. "I think we are experiencing some… difficulties with our mutations."

"Et bien, speak." snapped Aradia.

"It is probably best if we speak somewhere more… secluded. I have a feeling that the owners of this establishment will be none to pleased with this revelation."

With a nod, Aradia stood and led him to an area in the corner of the training room. Climbing equipment leapt overhead, designed to shift about to further test the mutant and a number of different hued stains coloured the ground below, suggesting that their mentor had good reason for not letting them use it yet.

"Voila, Equius. What is it?" This time, Aradia was more careful to hold back the irritation in her voice. She wanted to hear this, and pissing off Equius was not the way to go about this.

"Have you been, ah, getting any sort of, well, supernatural powers recently?"

"Uh, seriously?" '_Yes_,' "Are you drunk or simply massively stupid?" '_Oh god, what is happening to me_?' "Will you be asking me if I can, euh, see ghosts next aussi?" '_Help me_.'

Equius was no Nepeta when it came to interpreting people's emotions, but even he could tell that her fake nonchalance was hiding something darker beneath. Her hands trembled as she pushed hair from her eyes, and she did not look at him once. Sure, he was not exactly the most attractive person about (bloody Sollux), but it certainly was not bad enough to merit being avoided by the eyes.

"You _do_ know of what I'm speaking about." he said, assuring himself as much as her, because she evidently did, but she did not want to tell him this.

"No, _you_ want to believe that I do," she snarled. "Evidently you have been having, euh, some sort of weird problem and are trying to push an interesting reason onto it."

"Do not speak to me like that, low-blood." Equius hissed, and grabbed her arm as she stood to leave. Yet anger made his grip wildly strong, making Aradia grimace from pain. Yet she did not acknowledge the hurt, determined to show him that he could not overpower her.

Before she yelped, the Parisian snarled, "Would you mind letting go?"

And indeed, he did, probably something to do with treating peasants fairly, bless their lowblood veins. That did nothing to sate her rage and so Aradia stalked off towards a bench, kicking it hard before she sat down. The orange that threaded through their instructor flared at the loud noise, making her jump.

Well, Aradia could not be a mature young lady all of the time.

With her mind still jumbled from the development of her powers, Aradia was ordered away from the remainder of the training session to sleep off whatever problem she had. After a gloriously long shower in the training area's bathroom, she followed the errand boy to her dormitory and was surprised to see someone already there.

Unlike the rest of the mutants, Karkat Vantas was incredibly closed off about the colour of his blood, going so far as to use a bland grey text colour in contrast to the others, who used their blood colour for it. It was of Aradia's personal suspicion that he was a maroon blood like her and wanted to pretend otherwise while he could. For the majority of the human race, no matter the blood colour one would tend to remain the same colour as another of the same race. It was strange, another quirk of the hemospectrum. By which, it was meant that many still retained the characteristic shades of pink way through to a rich brown. Human through and through.

_Weak_.

**_Pathetic_**.

**_OBEY_**.

Aradia shook her head at the intrusion. Odd, what was that? Where was she at anyway? Oh yes, blood colours in relation to Karkat.

Beside, now that the mutants had their thick, grey skin only the heaviest of blushes would show up, and she had not been around to see such moments. Yet the one time Karkat had appeared a little flushed was from the intense heat of the desert when they first arrived, and she could have sworn there was a distinct red tinge to the blush.

Sure enough a web of red stretched beneath his skin. _Damn_ she needed to figure out what the hell this was already.

"Bonjour," she said politely, amused at how this boy was Nepeta's crush. Well… Nepeta had not told her outright, but she did not really need to say. His legs were sticking from the end of his pod and she could hear the clacking of keys from where she was stood. "Were you sent off as well?"

"What?" Karkat made an awkward shuffle to get out of his pod and ended up in a strange cross-legged position next to her.

"Hi, again," smiled Aradia. His red hue was oddly comforting, since her family had all been maroon-bloods, even if it was some sort of weird mutant ability. "I asked if you were sent off early from training."

"I can't see how that's any of your fucking business." Oh god, he was a curser. Seriously, Nepeta?

Aradia heaved an inner sigh before commenting, "I was trying to start conversation. It is what people commonly do when stuck in a room together."

"Well it's not fucking wanted here. Maybe you should try Gamzee when he gets back. He's willing to spill out his entire goddamn life story to just about any fuckass who asks." It was at this point that Aradia tuned out, and noticing this, the crabby boy grumbled some more before sliding back into his pod.

Wow, she certainly would not be trying that again anytime soon, Aradia decided as she climbed into her room, propping the door open with her foot as Karkat had done.

Against all the odds, Feferi was online, something to do with being sent back to the pod for snapping at her mentor. Aradia hadn't a clue what was happening at first, as all of a sudden a chat box appeared on her ceiling, with a keyboard whizzing out to join it and the words 'H-EY ARADIA! 8D' flashing up in bright, royal purple text. Something to do with royal blood privileges on who you could speak to.

They chatted for a while, catching up on what the other had been doing with their time, as they had not really spoken much since the meeting up before entering T.R.O.L.L.

Feferi tried in vain to steer the conversation away from the subject of Tavros's or indeed Group Eight's general well being, but she could not stop direct questions.

AA: s0 h0w is the rest 0f red team d0ing

AA: y0u all l00ked pretty w0rse f0r wear after the wh0le village thing

CC: W)(ale )(onestly I t)(ink we all did! Glub glub 8D

AA: 0kay i was trying t0 be subtle

AA: whats wr0ng with tavr0s ill admit im a little w0rried f0r him

CC: Water you talking about?

AA: the fact that hes in a wheelchair maybe

CC: U)(… it would probably be best if )(e told you )(imself…

CC: You know?

AA: i cant really claim t0 kn0w if y0u w0nt tell me

CC: Well I know t)(at somefin is wrong wit)( )(is legs, but ot)(er t)(an t)(at it would only be rumours

CC: Sorry I couldn't be more )(elp! 8C

Then continued to chat, but it had lost a certain light hearted edge to it, and both parties were relieved when the chime for dinner came.

An escort was sent for Karkat and Aradia, and from there they were led to the dining hall, walking in a forced silence… although if honest, Aradia could not care to start conversation with the grumpy boy.

After sitting down at the Blue Team's table, Aradia waited for Nepeta to come in so she could waggle her eyebrows. Turning every so often, she finally caught Nepeta as she came in, followed shortly afterwards by Equius, and the Parisian gave a slight motion of her head towards Karkat before waggling her eyebrows in a suggestive manner, one that clearly said 'hey, I know your crush is'.

Nepeta's face could have been down in the dictionary under embarrassment at that moment. She made frantic shushing gestures as her face gained an odd green hue to it, making her look more ill than flustered. But then it was Aradia's turn to find her face heat as none other than Sollux Captor walked in, and she turned back to her food quicker than you could say 'meddling kids'… and then turned back round for second helpings, getting an eyeful of Sollux before noticing Tavros being wheeled in by Vriska.

It seemed that part of the Brit still felt guilt for the accident… or perhaps she merely enjoyed the chance to gloat at the disabled boy. Hmm… the later definitely had a higher chance of being the case. With little grace and care, she hauled Tavros from the chair and put him on their bench next to Kanaya, as Sollux had chosen to sit beside Feferi that day.

'_Which I am not jealous at in any way, mon dieu. What a suggestion_!' Aradia's inner monologue rambled, even though she certainly was a little jealous. Following this admitting, she immediately felt guilty for being jealous of Feferi, who had been ridiculously kind to her despite her princess blood.

Spicy stewed vegetables with chick peas were served on a bed of couscous, and Aradia dug in with relish, finding it hard to remember to eat politely like she had been brought up to. It was hardly logical that such a terrible place would have such _divine_ food, but hell, she was not complaining. Nor was Vriska, it seemed, who had practically vacuumed up her first portion and was now all but shovelling in her second.

"Oh my god, this food almost makes it worth it!" Nepeta beamed, only to reprimanded by her morail.

"Such words are hardly appropriate, Nepeta."

Yet to Aradia, as well as Equius's surprise, Karkat intercepted his comment. "Let her fucking live a little, creep."

"Excuse me?"

"The fuck, Toreadork?" Vriska chuckled, but Aradia barely took it in, instead focussing on the scene before her, where there were clear indications that Equius was going to 'flip his shit', as Nepeta liked to say. Equius was not her favourite person, especially at the moment, but she was not about to let him pummel Karkat in the nose and be faced with the punishment that would surely come.

"Equius," she began in a warning tone, accompanied by Nepeta's 'don't you dare!' glare. "Calm down."

"Would you stop ordering me so, gutterblood." He grumbled, but none the less unclenched his hands and refrained from hitting the crabby boy. She was getting somewhere! Or perhaps Nepeta had lectured him about being rude to people… hmm.

"Tavros?" Vriska's tone cut through the room again to where Aradia was sat, and although it initially sounded nonchalant, there was no way she was completely at ease. An edge hid in her voice that betrayed her confusion, as well as her words.

Turning to face Red Team's table, Aradia's eyes widened at the sight of the olive-blooded medic lifting Tavros into his wheelchair and then taking him away, the trails of light blue under his skin very faint. That probably was not a good thing. Vriska looked confused, mainly, at the situation, and then when her medic whispered something in her ear a slither of guilt flashed on her face for just a second.

Yellow was the colour pulsing throughout her body, and oddly enough it seemed that many other hazes of colour surrounded her, flitting around and occasionally wandering close to the girl, but never closer than two metres. The focus of these colours could equally be any of the people sitting at Red Team's table, but something told Aradia that it was the Brit. Odd.

Every person in the room, mutant and non mutant had the colour in them, and the Parisian noted that it did not adhere to their blood colour, given Nepeta's olive blood, and pink… well… _thing_ inside her.

But back to the issue of Vriska's guilt. Did she have something to do with whatever was wrong with the orange-blood?

"Aradia, are you okay?" Terezi tilted her head a little, as if trying to get a better look at the girl over at the other end of the table, but judging by the twitching of her nostrils she was… smelling her? "You smell mad."

Caught off guard by the comment, Aradia could only say, "What?"

"I asked if you were okay." the girl repeated, a frown marring her features.

"Fuck, Terezi! You can't just go around saying you fucking smelt their emotions!"

"Because you're one to talk on human relations, Karkles." the girl said slowly, grinning in an oddly eerie fashion. From her position across the table, Aradia could clearly see the slightly upset look flicker across Nepeta's face at Terezi and Karkat's antics, which currently involved the former covering the latter's mouth with a disturbing amount of accuracy for a blind girl. "Anyway, stop distracting me, numbskull."

With the same excuse as before, she dismissed their concerns. "I'm just a little tired."

"You should try some of _this_ motherfucking miracle, sis. Never had problems with sleep after having a fucking bowl of this." Gamzee put his arm over Aradia's shoulder, offering her the bowl of green goo.

"Uh… thanks but no thanks, Gamzee." Aradia said with a sheepish smile. "What actually is that, may I ask?"

"I already told you, sis. Fucking miracles is what it is."

"Right."

Dinner ended and they filed back to their respective pods. Settling down into the comfort of her bed, Aradia was struck by a sudden intense feeling of loneliness. Yet rather than moping around (for Aradia was not one for moping), she decided to see if she could get in contact with some of her friends from outside… although that was very unlikely.

And yet, she carried on. Asking the pod to log her onto the chat program popular at the time, she was pleased to find a chat box pop up on the ceiling, with a keyboard sliding out of the wall to sit before her. A vertical black line flickered on, off, on in the box for the name of person you wanted to talk to.

Not particularly wanting to speak to Feferi (even if she could remember her name), first, she tried the name of her best friend at school.

- toulouseCouleur

**- Name not recognised. Please try again.**

Okay, evidently that name was not working. She then tried the name of another one of her school friends, and another… and another, diligently until she had exhausted all names she knew.

With only a frustrated sigh, she tried a few online friends, before an idea struck her. What if the only people she could contact were those in the facility? That was highly likely, given the nature of where they were.

Well regardless she would try just a few more names. Her fatal online role-play friends would be nice to speak to, if they were indeed here. Her partner on campaigns, adiosToreador, was a lovely boy (as far as she knew) who always cheered her up without fail with his clumsy charm. He even spoke French to her, making their campaigns a little easier, which was sweet. While they had never actually seen each other, or knew the others name for that matter, they were good friends. His parents were very strict with internet safety from the sound of it, so Aradia was just thankful that he could come on at all!

And although it was pretty weird, Tavros kind of reminded her of him. Probably just his similarly awkward demeanour, she guessed. But… well, it wouldn't hurt, would it? Besides, she needed someone to take her mind off poor Tavros, whatever had happened to him.

-adiosToreador

apocalypseArisen [AA] began trolling adiosToreador [AT]

The cursor hovered over the chat box, and Aradia felt a wide grin push its way onto her face.

AA: hey pupa!

**- Message not sent. User: **adiosToreador** is unable to access the internet due to: **medical reasons**. Please try again later.**

And just like that, she was disconnected from the chat. Lousy goddamn stupid everything. A flutter hovered at the base of her stomach however. A flutter of… hope? What if adiosToreador _was_ Tavros? And the reason she could not contact him was because of his collapse at dinner today?

What was the name of the spider girl? The clouder from Team Scourge whose persona in the game was a tall, well curved pirate lady… uh… oh yeah!

- arachnidsGrip

apocalypseArisen [AA] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]

AA: hell0

Aradia could barely believe it! Next she would try the other member of Team Scourge, because three is a magic number and so maybe the entirety of her online role-play group would be here. Although really she should have tried the more amiable gallowsCalibrator, who did not constantly make attempts on Team Charge's lives. Oh well. Too late now.

AG: Hahahaha, no way!

AG: The rest of team charge have joined us!

AA: us?

AG: 8luh, not in a literal sense.

Same old arachnidsGrip.

AA: may i ask wh0 i am speaking t0

AA: in terms 0f th0se in the retainment 0rganisati0n

AG: Seriously? Who do you fucking think?

AA: 0_0

AA: vriska

AG: Yessssssss.

AA: glad i g0t it 0n the first try

AA: my next guess w0uld have been nepeta

AG: Hahahaha, very funny. Not.

AG: And you must 8eeeeeeee…

AG: Araaaaaaaadiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaa.

AA: c0rrect

AG: So, how is your pathetic little 8lue team doing?

AA: a l0t better than y0urs apparently

AA: s0 what happened t0 tavr0s by the way

AG: Should have seen that coming.

AG: 8luh, loosen up! What is it with you and that 8oy?

AA: well y0u did push him 0ff a cliff in FORP killing his avatar

AA: and getting him banned fr0m the internet f0r three m0nths because his parents th0ught he was being bullied 0nline

AG: ::::/

AG: Oh god, what a complete loser. I'm not even surprised.

AG: So you worked out toreadork is Tavros?

AG: This is the 8it where I clap slowly.

AG: *clap… clap… clap…*

AA: lets n0t turn this int0 a r0leplay

AA: what happened t0 him

AG: Yaaaaaaaawn, 8oring.

AG: 8ut I guess I could tell you.

AG: As far as I know, it's something to do with how quickly he mut8ed.

AG: His anti8odies or whatever are freaking out 8ig time 8lah 8lah his 8ody can't take it 8lah 8lah.

AG: So 8asically he collapsed.

AA: well fuck

AG: I know!

AG: How is my group gonna have a shot at 8eating those royal 8loods now?

AG: ::::(

AA: what

AA: seri0usly thats what y0ure m0st w0rried ab0ut

AG: Okay.

AG: So may8e I feel sliiiiiiiightly 8ad.

AA: what did it have t0 d0 with y0u

AG: Well frankly that's none of y8ur fuck8ng 8usiness.

AA: flustered are we?

AA: y0u kn0w… i heard that mutati0n rates speed up really quickly

AA: if tw0 mutants stay in cl0se c0ntact for l0ng peri0ds 0f time

AA: 0_0

AA: i wish i c0uld make that l00k suggestive

AA: 0u0

AA: n0 that l00ks stupid

AA: 0h well

AG: What are you imply8ng?

AA: what d0 y0u think im implying

AG: That's the oldest trick in the 8ook.

AG: 8ut for now, lets say… may8e that did happen, whatever you'r8 suggesting,

AG: Which it didn't.

AG: And so I kinda made him collapse and go into a coma,

AG: Lets just say for now.

AG: What would you 8e like?

Aradia snarled at the ostentatious cerulean words before her. Clearly Vriska had played a part in what had happened to Tavros. Now, she hadn't a clue how she could have done a thing, Vriska had probably just forced herself on the poor boy, somehow. Creep.

Inside, Aradia felt a strong seething rage at the other girl's actions, and from this her powers began to manifest further. Unwittingly, the Parisian was summoning something.

AA: well y0u're clearly n0t sh0wing any rem0rse

AA: s0 i guess id make y0u feel rem0rse

AG: Oh?

AG: And how would you do that?

And then, it went silent from Vriska's end for quite a while. Around ten minutes later, just as Aradia was going to log off and go to bed.

AG: Nice trick! W8th the ghosts and all. Man, you got me pr8tty good.

AA: s0rry?

AG: Hahahaha, very funny.

AG: I'm a fucking pile of laughs on th8 floor r8ght now.

AA: 0_0

AA: i seri0usly have n0 idea what y0ure talking ab0ut

AG: I'm terrified! There! Is that what y8u wanted to he8r you sick fuck?

AG: N8w mak8 them go the f8ck away!

AA: im s0rry but i d0nt kn0w what y0u mean

AA: b0nne nuit

* * *

><p><strong>== Be the spider bitch<strong>

- We apologise for the inconvenience, but Vriska is currently in the wrong frame of mind for you to be her.

**== Be the spider bitch the next morning**

You are now Vriska Serket, the morning after your conversation with Aradia

Getting dressed was a horrid affair. It was bad enough trying to pull overalls on when you were in a very small space and had only _one_ arm, but the added voices surrounding her were somewhat of a huge put-off.

Honestly, she could not say that she was completely certain as to what was going on, but as far as she could tell, the ghosts of all she had helped to kill were haunting her. But she could never actually _see_ them, no. Apparently that was too good for her. Instead, they would skim at the corners of her vision, faces hovering on the periphery of her one working eye.

It had to be Aradia! Because who else had the motive? It had started as soon as she had told the girl that she may be involved in Tavros's lapse of consciousness. The corners of her eyes began blur, and over a few seconds that blur because faces, slightly transparent but there nonetheless. Understandably, she freaked out for a good ten minutes, screaming and trying to get out of the room in a similar manner to her claustrophobia episode.

She had gotten no sleep. Too scared of the whisperings and the ghosts and what they would do if she dropped off for even a second.

"Looking a little chubby today," one commented in a husky whisper as she clambered out of the pod. "You'd think that exercise would help, but wow. Your fat is resistant to all."

"Oh but look, though. It's clear it's going to make her super curvy. Just how I like 'em." another purred, and Vriska could have sworn she could feel a cold hand flush against the skin at the small of her back. "Just wait until she matures a little more."

A tear formed at the corner of her eye, stemming from the frightened and disturbed feelings in her body. This was soon disposed of and Vriska slid into her ego, the slouch in her shoulders ironed out as her spine straightened up. A sneer sat comfortably on her face and showed no signs of leaving.

When Vriska sighted Aradia from across the room, she shot her middle finger up at her, earning a very confused look.

Was that bitch still pretending she had not done this to her? Ah that was more like it. Aradia's complexion turned a very odd shade as she spotted the near solid forms that surrounded Vriska. Rather than the blobs they were before, these forms were… well, horrific.

The colours they were made up of seemed to flow down the major veins, creating creatures that seemed to be made of blood vessels, save for the glow where the neck would ordinarily be.

What. Had. She. Done.

"You look like thit today ath well." Sollux commented to Vriska, giving her horns a poke in the process that sent an odd shiver through her body. She quickly pushed him away.

"You know, is there ever going to be a day, now, when you don't comment on how shit I look?"

With a wide grin, Eridan added, "You really do, though, Wriska."

"_Vriska_, fishy. Like Vri… uh… shit I can't think of a word."

"Veruca?" one of her ghosts offered, which no one else seemed to notice, thankfully.

The next few days were hideously dull without Tavros to bully… ahem, tease. She even got bored of the ghosts, as it seemed all they could do was insult her from afar, and since the one incident where she had thought one touched her, none of the others had come closer than two metres to her. She had merely imagined the ghostly hand on her back. All they did was bitch, and Vriska had a fairly thick skin to that. Sleep did not come easily, however, and so she pestered Aradia every night to make them go away, with little luck. The Parisian did not know where they had come from, but she was firm in her decision that they would make her show remorse at what she had done to Tavros.

Kanaya had begun to speak to her, and she found the classy girl's company nice, if not a tad overly-mothering at times. And by at times, she meant always. She tended to look fairly flustered a lot, though, which was weird.

Brobot was as impossible to beat as ever, and so it was with relief when Vriska was pulled out of training by her medic, informing her that she needed to make her way to the operating theatre.

* * *

><p><strong>== Tavros, wake already<strong>

You are now Tavros Nitram, about to enter the surgical theatre-

**== Okay, maybe don't wake now, wait until after the operation, whoa**

White light filled his vision before a blurry image of his surroundings began to form. To his right, the doctor that had been assigned to him, and to his left stood Vriska, her sadistic smile still plastered on her face and a bandage covering her damaged eye. The room was of a light teal and a variety of machines stood on standby around him.

"Hey, Pupa," she smirked. "About time you woke up."

"Huh?"

"And guess what?" Vriska continued, ignoring his almost-question. "I got you a little gift."

She then proceeded to sit down on the corner of his hospital bed and snake her fingers below the covers, the tips lightly brushing across the skin of his shin, disrupting the fine hair there and making a heavy flush appear across his features. After what may or may not have happened _that night_, he wasn't sure how comfortable he was with such actions.

"Uh, could you… wait w-what?" Tavros flung the covers to the sides, and ignoring the black in the corners of his vision (lousy goddamn stupid head rush) gave the skin of his thigh a good pinch, making him yelp. He tried again with a slightly more gentle pinch to his calf, and again, the same result. He could feel… he could feel his legs again. Continuing the prodding, he was a little surprised at the sharp twist to the skin of his leg Vriska gave.

"Ow!"

"Oh, I thought it was a sort of 'lets all pinch Pupa's legs' game." she snickered.

"Wait… what did you just call me?"

"Pupa, lameass. How did you think I got the tissue sample for your new stem cells?"

. The orange on his face deepened in shade as he realised just what she had done. Her face had also taken on a slightly blue tint, although she was keeping her embarrassment under better control than he was, and even had the gusto to smirk in a seductive manner at him. It was a pretty hard thing to pull off when one of your eyes is bandaged up and one is in a hospital gown, but Vriska just about managed it.

"How did I get here?" he finally asked, realising he had collapsed in the dining room, and woken in a hospital bed.

"You passed out due to how fast your mutation developed, thanks to Ms Serket here." his medic explained. "The close proximity allowed you to both to get to a more advanced state than the rest, and the speed of this confused your body cells. You've been passed out here for almost a week now while your body recovers. In fact, you woke for a brief amount of time two days ago, which is when we decided to implant your stem cells."

"Surely that's a really stupid idea since he's already recovering from his mutation shit." Vriska commented and was met with the stony silence that said 'I'm a doctor, and you're not, mutant.' "Well, either way, this is convenient since we need to train you up so you can fight Kanaya."

His face paled impressively, loosing the flush from his earlier thoughts as he remembered he would have to fight the chainsaw wielding girl.

"He will have to remain here for another few days, but after then you can have him." the doctor said.

"That'll have to do, I guess."

"And so will you, with your new eye. We need to monitor you." Dr Kajeor added to her horror.

"But I've got work to do!"

"Well you'll have to do it here!" he smirked in a most Vriska-like fashion, before he and the other doctor left the room, leaving only Vriska, Tavros and the mountain of awkward.

"Well fuck."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **AAAH! I'm so sorry for all the mistakes in this one! I've fixed them all now (hopefully), and a big thanks to everyone who pointed them out!

Sorry this one's a little late! I've been drawing a lot lately, (and revising for my exams but not that much really lol) and should have some character sketches to put on the tumblr page for this, which is under natural-selection-fanfics. Also, the end is kinda rushed because I've got to go somewhere, and I wanted to get it up before then because this is lateeeee! D:

Aradia is a hard character to write as, I find. So, I guess I find it easier to write as a huge bitch is what I'm saying? Hm.

(_spoilersss_: enjoy the legs while you can Tavbaby, I'm so sorry)

And thank you for reading! ^^


	15. Fluorite octet

"C'mon. Baby steps towards me, that's all I'm asking for," Vriska ordered from her position on the bed: cross-legged with her arms folded behind her head, leaning against the wall. "You may as well be paralyzed again."

Progress with the new legs had been slow, Tavros had been horrified to learn. As he had very quickly found out, the disuse of the muscles, if just for a couple of weeks, had big consequences now he was trying to use his legs again. The doctors had told him not to expect miracles with the speed of his recovery. He would have to take it slow and build up the muscles again, and they had given him gentle exercises to do this with. Of course they knew of the impending deadline fast approaching them, but they could do little about that.

This was too slow for Vriska.

"Do you want to be mauled by a chainsaw? Jeez, I may as well have used my eye to get me my arm back, rather than your _still_ pointless legs," she would often complain, making it well known that Vriska Serket was the reason he had gotten the use of his legs back and no one else. "Oh, two steps! Well damn, you're practically Pupa Pan. I would be applauding at your massive achievement, but I'm kinda low on hands at the moment, since I pretty much gave up my arm for you."

Clutching at the rails of his bed, Tavros would edge his way forwards. Just one big old foot after the other. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. Yeah.

"Come on! At least try!"

"I, uhh, I am." he replied, as snappy as he could make it, which was not very snappy at all. She was still pushing him to keep going, and frankly all he wanted to do was sit down for a bit. "I don't understand, why, I can't just, uhh, take a break."

Sighing like she had the world on her shoulders, Vriska shifted closer to where he was currently sitting and said, "Remember when we used to FORP together? This is exactly the same thing! You were too soft and unprepared, and so our team always beat you, and AA had to constantly come to your aid. Nothing comes easy, Tavros.

'Maybe you've just been unlucky and had everything easy so far. But that's okay, it probably wasn't your fault. Which is why you're lucky to have me here in your group to make you strong. Now you can take this help, and thank me for being such a brave, heroic pretty person. Or you can continue to fester there being useless, pathetic and a waste of air."

After Tavros's awakening post-operation, and the taunting of how he was a useless, pathetic waste-of-air, Vriska slid under the covers of her bed and quickly fell asleep. She had been looking particularly harrowed and tired, so Tavros was glad of it. Not only would it give her a chance to recover, but it allowed him to evade her cruel comments… and gave him time to think.

Tavros did not know what to make of this girl, and after a nights worth of missed sleep, he still had not come to a conclusion. Just… women, what? He was not sure if it just part of her plan that she had kissed him, or if this was part of some sort of _massive_ mood swing. With a teenage girl, it was entirely possible. Since the _event_, she showed no further signs of being interested in him.

Occasionally, she make noises in her sleep. Most of it was snoring (occasionally pretty loud, he might add), with the next largest portion of the noises being strange mutterings and whimpers, complete gobbledygook really. But now and then, she would say words, and Tavros felt a little awkward hearing them.

Composed of a lot of nonsense, such as 'mmneh, got tiger first', which she seemed pretty adamant about, and 'lousy goddamn stupid spot, get off', the words Vriska spoke were pretty amusing. His favourite, however, was 'stupid hipster fish', said with a deep, serious frown. Evidently someone had done something to offend her in her dreams.

He'd had more than enough sleep recently, so he stayed awake all night, which was actually exactly as boring as it sounded. Not wanting to be creepy and watch Vriska sleep (besides, that was boring as hell other than when she said something funny), Tavros tried to walk, which did little to prevent his mind wandering.

Why? Whyyyyyyyy?

Well actually, thinking about it gave him the reason soon enough. The reason on why she had done all of _that_. She needed to fool him into thinking her meddling was a dream, and one way to do this would be to act so out of character there was no way her actions could be reality. Ouch.

Come on. Just a few steps. Tavros needed to be prepared and ready to walk for the fight, and that was in only a few days time. God they were screwed.

The rail of the bed was a lifeline and he slowly pulled himself to his feet after another inevitable plunge to the ground. It was just like when he first became paralyzed, except without the taunts and the attempts to make him walk, for now. And unlike that time, he was not actually, uh, unable to walk, really.

Maybe he was just pathetic?

Maybe it was his own fault, because he really had no excuse not to be strolling around now he had the new nerve cells. He was disgustingly weak, and after another failure at walking he simply stayed in the crumpled pile on the floor, orange tinted saltwater sliding down his face to pool in puddles below him. And if he looked up, he would have noticed a liquid of contrasting colour slowly edging down the face of his room mate as her ghosts haunted her.

All in all, it was almost as if they were inside a saltwater room.

But terrible references aside, he soon picked himself back up and tried again. The last thing he needed was more taunting from Vriska.

The next morning, both mutants were amused to find that Tavros had fallen asleep curled up on the floor, and after a quick scrubbing of the face to remove any evidence of tears, they both slid into their daily routine of taunting and being taunted.

After their delivered breakfasts, Vriska noticed that the skin surrounding Tavros's horns seemed sore and weepy.

"We've got to have you in top-condition if we're to win," she reminded, pressing the button provided to alert the medics of a problem. Her one visible eye glinted as she prodded at it, making a gagging noise at the texture. "This is like when my sister first got her ears pierced, and they got infected because the girl who did it was shit."

"Uh, what?" He still did not dare to look her in the eye, except when she wasn't looking at him first.

"This pus and generally gross colour. It's a sign of infection," Vriska said, extra-slowly this time round as if talking to an incredibly dumb person. "It's not gonna kill you or anything… well probably not. You low bloods have a weaker immune system, right?"

"Yes?" The nurse peeked their head around the door. "You called?"

"Yeah, his horn things look infected." Vriska replied, moving to sit on her bed as opposed to Tavros's.

Pulling on a pair of medical gloves, the nurse shifted the hair from in front of the horn-nubs and carefully inspected the area, being careful not to touch the horns themselves. After a few seconds of this, the nurse stood once more and announced, "Come, we will go to the first aid room and get this sorted. Infection in such areas is fairly common amongst you."

As the nurse worked, he remarked upon the type of horn he would possibly get.

"With horn-nubs this far out to the side of your head, the trend tends to be large, branching horns." he said, talking loudly over the buzz as the orange-blood watched the hair tumble from his head in horror.

When he returned, Tavros shuffled in with a hunched over and shy demeanour, clearly trying to hide himself. Well, it was not working.

"Oh god, Toreadork! Your _hair_!" Vriska snickered before it evolved into full on laughter.

To better access the area of infection, the medic had shaved away the hair around his horns, leaving only a thick, quiff-like strip of hair running down the centre of his head. Actually it did not look too bad, but rather it was simply different to what they had known before. The usual problems with just getting a radical haircut.

These next few days were spent with Tavros learning how to walk again, and Vriska getting used to the new eye. Despite it being grown from her own stem-cells, it still felt… off. There was something slightly wrong with it, and this was because her mind was telling her 'hey, this isn't your eye, why is it there?' Well enough of that, she had work to do.

On the third night it was Vriska's turn to lie awake, listening to Tavros's rather more quiet snoring. Unlike her, he did very little in his sleep making it incredibly dull… other than the ghosts.

"Is he going to be your next victim?" a quiet voice asked half way through the night. It was one of the less vocal faces, hovering in the corner of her eye with greenish glow to her features.

"No," Vriska muttered. She very rarely spoke back to the ghosts, but she felt it appropriate to do it that time. "I don't need to do that anymore."

There was a slight pause, before the voice replied. "Good." It then settled back into silence, the other ghosts taking over the torment instead, yet their voices were slightly dimmed by the presence of another living being in the room. Almost as if they were worried he would wake up and see them.

"Who were you talking to?" another voice asked, near silent in the darkness.

"One of you bastards." she sighed, then realised the irony of calling them bastards, when she herself was one. Oops. "Who else?"

"Uhh…" Oh shit, that wasn't a ghost, that had been Tavros. None of the ghosts err-ed and uhh-ed their way around conversations.

'_Okay, it'll be fine. Just pretend you're sleep talking_,' Vriska decided mentally, and said, "You took my kiwi fruit."

"I'm not, uh, actually that stupid, you know," Tavros whispered. "You're awake."

"Oh really?" Vriska gave up on the pretence of being asleep and instead tried to think of ways to wriggle out of this awkward little situation.

"Well… uhh, yeah."

"Who'd have thought!" she teased.

"Seriously, who were you, uh, talking to?"

"Is that any of your business? Oh, surprise! It's not." Vriska laughed, teeth on show with her wide, spiteful grin. "You should stop sticking your nose in other people's business."

That had been the worst comeback ever. It had only served to add mystery to her speaking aloud, which would make Tavros want to find out _who_ all the more. She knew this perfectly well, and so was not surprised in the least when he asked, "I won't make fun of you. It's, uhh, not like I'm really in the position to."

"Fine," the Brit snapped. "But only because you're so pathetic it doesn't really matter. I was just speaking to myself. It helps me to sort my thoughts and stuff."

If there was one thing Vriska Serket could do, it was lie. And really, it was what had gotten her in that position in the first place, because it was well known that a web of lies ensnared the deceiver just as much as the deceived.

"Oh. I do that too. It's, uh, not something to be too embarrassed about." Wow, he was actually trying to reassure her… honestly, she was not sure what she had done to deserve this. In fact, this entire scene was made all the more funny by how she wasn't actually speaking to herself, so his reassurances were essentially useless.

When they were finally released from the tiny hospital room, they were both relieved, to put it mildly. Immediately, Vriska got her medic to take her to the training rooms, as she was eager to catch up on all the work she had missed. While in the medical bay, they had decided (well, Vriska had anyway) that it would be best if they pretended Tavros still needed his wheelchair. And so she was currently dragging him along too on her trip to meet up with Sollux again. It wasn't as if they were going to go to the pods at midday anyway.

"About fucking time you thowed up," Sollux smirked as they entered the room. "I wath wondering where you'd gone."

"Well I can understand why you'd miss me, but Toreasnooze, less so," Vriska flicked her hair back over her shoulder as she dumped Tavros onto the floor by tilting the wheelchair forwards, a hard task with only one arm. "Right. Lets show him our new trick!"

"Whoa, Vrithka, what?" Sollux moved to help the boy on the floor, but their mentor held up a hand to stop him. And he listened.

Slowly, slowly Tavros pulled himself to his feet, and leaning heavily on Vriska, stood up.

"Well this is _very_ swell and all that jazz, but we've got work to do." the Handmaid said, brushing some near invisible dust from her shoulder. She seemed oddly… younger? Unlike the classy, low voice of their previous sessions with her, this Handmaid had a higher pitched voice. Her frame was slightly more girlish than womanly, and she definitely wasn't the seven foot tall mutant from before, being only a little taller than Vriska currently… odd. Even her horns were smaller, looking only like the coiled horns of a ram. "Although those new legs are the bee's knees, kid. You got a chance of winning now. Maybe."

"Uh, thanks."

"Right, Sollux here has been getting much better, especially with his eye-lazers. I hope you'll both make up for lost time by putting in extra hours. If you're going to beat Group Ten, you'll have to train into the night.

'First, you, girl," It was hard to take the woman calling you 'girl' seriously when she scarcely looked a year older than you. "I took your dice. I don't think you realise what you've got here."

"What do you mean?" Vriska huffed, snatching the box back from the weird, horned girl. "They're just dice."

"I thought they were just a copy at first, but it seems they're the real McCoy. You got the dice of Marquise Mindfang there, girl."

"The what? Mindfang is just my roleplay character. She's not a real person."

"Is there nobody upstairs or did no one tell you about your ancestor? Well, I'm not going into that, but I'll tell you this: they are a very powerful weapon, and one that is notoriously difficult to wield. It requires a lot of luck for those to be used effectively."

"Well, that's convenient, because I have all of the luck," Vriska collected the dice into her hand and looked back at the Handmaid for further instruction. "You going to tell me how to use these or what?"

"I haven't a clue. She just threw them, and things happened," the trainer shrugged. "Try them on that dummy over there."

"But I've already rolled them hundreds of times and nothing's happened." But nonetheless, Vriska dropped the dice to the floor.

12

She frowned, a low result.

"It's not working."

"Hmm… two, one, one, two, three, one, one, one. So, 11111223."

"Huh?"

"You combine the numbers into an eight digit code, you don't add them, dumb Dora," the Handmaid explained, still frowning at the dice. "Try using your psychic powers on them."

Vriska gave the girl an incredulous look. "Those are dice."

"And? I think that's probably the best thing to do. I can't really see another way you could have used them before without bumping people off."

"Those are… never mind." Vriska collected the dice up again and stared at them, trying to cast her psychic powers over the winking, blue shapes. Well… that was all she could do at this time, so she threw them again.

37- no.

84573451

Order them smallest to largest, and the result was 13445578.

'_Come on, stupid dice. _Do_ something_.' she mentally commanded, then all of a sudden a strange flash of light seared their vision, and the dummy before them was gone, save for a dark shadow on the mirror behind. What had just happened?

"You going to tell uth next time you try to blind everyone?"

"I like keeping you on your toes." Vriska shrugged, although she was easily as shocked as the rest, if not more since she'd been given the dice as a kid to play with and hadn't a clue of their powers.

"Good. Repeat what you did just then, and you should be set for your fight. Eridan has some sort of gun as far as I know, and it looks pretty nasty. But with the confined spaces you'll be having for your fighting bubbles, I doubt he'll be able to use it without destroying himself in the process, so you're probably in luck. Probably."

Tavros paled a little, worried about what this meant for him as well. "Why, uh, only probably?"

The Handmaid turned to face them all with a smile, and said, "Because the only thing we know for certain is that we will die."

* * *

><p>It was the day of the fights, those to determine which of the two groups that composed the red and blue teams were the best overall.<p>

As soon as the mutants finished their breakfast (most of which went untouched), they were taken to two sets of adjoining rooms. Red team's room was separated into two sections by a thick sheet of fogged glass, blocking all sound and severely affecting what the different groups could see of one another.

The Handmaid was waiting for Group Eight, and her appearance seemed to have changed yet again, looking closer to twenty than the fifteen or so she had been last time. Incorporating this into her looks, she was a lofty seven and a half foot now, with the vast spiralling horns of before making her even taller. Very, very odd.

"We have five minutes of prep time before the show begins," she announced as they approached her. "Behind me are the weapons you can use. Bearcat, go for the knives, make a big show of them before you use the dice. Got it?" Her eyes twinkled with amusement as she then said, "Have fun. I know you will."

Vriska was not sure how she felt about that statement.

"Tho what the fuck am I doing then?" Sollux asked, eyeing up the weapons. While he could very easily just disintegrate Feferi with his optic blasts, it wasn't something he wanted on his record, despite their mentor telling him he could rein in the energy being released. Pfft, yeah right.

"I really wish you would stop having all of these midlife crisis's about yourself. Trust me, it'll go fine." her smile was bright and wide as she tapped the front of his glasses with a long nail. To most people it may have appeared sweet, yet Vriska thought it horrifically patronising; especially how she was leaning over to speak to them with her hands on her knees. God she was tall.

"And Tavros, sweetie," their mentor handed him another jousting dagger, wrapping his fingers around the hilt to the best of her ability. "Don't get too beat up."

"Wow, that sounds promising. Pep talks for us, and then just 'don't get too beat up' for him?" Vriska snorted, aiming for an American accent to mock the Handmaid, but only getting an accent that sounded like a mix up of Italian and Welsh. Well, she tried. "Sounds like you know more than you're letting on."

"Mind your potatoes." the Handmaid replied, any humour removed from her face. Her expression had sobered up while talking to Tavros, and it seemed that it was not about to make a reappearance anytime soon. But then, it was pretty hard to take someone seriously who had just told you to 'mind your potatoes', so Vriska smirked anyway.

From where she was stood, she could just about see a green-grey blob with a dash of purple at the top of their head – Eridan. It seemed that he was picking up a long, grey object. A gun? If it was the ridiculously powerful one that the Handmaid was telling her about, then she should be fine given he'd kill himself in the process of killing her. But if it was a different one, she was screwed, to put it nicely.

Only the idiot brings a knife to a gun fight.

"Well, that's all, kiddies. You'll be… somewhat fine. Trust me."

They were ushered into strange lift-like devices, one in each, and then sealed up. Vriska then realised that she likely missed an important piece of information. Shit.

Well, they indeed were fighting in a bubble, she noted. The floor space was a circle, and had a diameter of four metres at most. From this, the glass walls bloated outwards a little before joining together again at the top. A slightly filled in sphere. Through these walls, they could see the other mutants with ease. Alongside their bubble were Feferi and Sollux's, and Kanaya and Tavros's to the right. Before theirs, Equius and Terezi. Clearly, the winner of their battle would go on to fight either Terezi or Equius. Whomever was victorious in their fight.

Eridan rose from the ground at the same rate as she did, languidly and far too slow for her liking. A wild grin sat on his face, and it brought the thought of a smiling barracuda to mind, although she too wore a smirk.

"Wwell this should be fun."

"Planning to take out all your frustrations on me?"

"Wwouldn't you like that?"

To her dismay, the gun he carried looked like a bog-standard shot-gun, so he could definitely use that on her without killing himself in the process. The dice clinked against each other from their hidden place up her sleeve and brought her some comfort. Vriska could definitely unleash some hell upon him if she wanted to.

The klaxon filled the air, and the fights began.

* * *

><p>Your name is Nepeta Leijon.<p>

You like to engage in FRIENDLY ROLE PLAYING, but not the DANGEROUS KIND. It's TOO DANGEROUS! But then you're two blood castes too low to get that kind of connection to the internet, so it's not THAT MUCH OF A BIG DEAL.

Your daily routine is dangerous enough as it is anyway. You prowl the wilderness for GREAT BEASTS, and stalk them and take them down with nothing but your SHARP CLAWS AND TEETH! You take them back to your house and EAT THEM, and from time to time, WEAR THEIR PELTS FOR FUN. Your family do not approve of the wearing though, but they sure appreciate the FREE FOOD.

You used to draw comics depicting EXCITING TALES FROM THE HUNT. And other goofy stories about you and your numerous pals (not to mention a fair amount of shipping, but SHOOSH no one must know!)

A while ago, you began to turn grey, and you decided it was CONTAGIOUS so you HID IN A CAVE for a week to save everyone from it. But your meddlesome morail and adoptive-brother Equius FOUND YOU and that was that. They then tried to take you both to the doctor, where you were TURNED IN. Oh well, AT LEAST YOU STILL HAVE EACH OTHER.

Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: (forgot to put the Nepeta intro in, whoops!) Sorry it's shorter than normal! This was originally the beginning of my next chapter, and it was going to be super long, but I decided that I'd give it to you split. Also, it makes more sense to pace it a little. Right, moving on!

Thanks for all the reviews last chapter! That was the most reviews I've ever gotten for a chapter, just, you guys all rock omg ;A;

So much sadstuck at the beginning, sorry! I shouldn't listen to depressing music while writing, honestly! Also, what's all this about Tavros loving chicken nuggets or something? I've already made him a damn veggie, gosh xD

Okay, and final thing (sorry for always asking questions here!) is Vriska mean enough? Because, aah, some people make her really cruel and IDK *hides*

And thank you for reading as always! ^^


	16. Tyrian fog

The klaxon was the cue, and at it Eridan leapt towards her, swinging the nozzle of the gun in her direction. Yet it was blindingly clear he was not about to take her out in one shot, it would be far too dull for him.

The metal end smacked her in the side of the head, throwing her against the side of the dome hard enough to make a 'dong'. Briefly thanking the Kanaya for tying her hair back for her (she could never get it done with only one hand), she then began pulling her knife from where it was strapped to her side. Eridan's eyes widened a little at the sight of the knife, and Vriska quickly pieced together why.

When she had first seen him after the trip into the retainment organisation, he had been wearing a surgical gown, indicating that he had recently been operated upon. The scars she could see on his legs looked like vast slashes done with a particularly nasty knife, so it would be reasonable to assume he had somewhat of a fear now.

"Oh? Scared of knives are we?"

"Only a' idiot wwouldn't be."

With a grin, she darted forwards, knife point aimed at his arm, and drew a line of purple down the skin. A delicious colour that oddly pleased her mind. His other fist reached up and smashed her around the face, making her stagger back, feinting a daze before she dropped to the floor and swept his feet out from beneath him. Vriska needed to get that gun away from him, damn it.

As his face hit the ground, his grip upon the handle of the gun lessened until it was flung a couple of metres away, and she darted after it, holding it triumphantly. Spitting out some blood from where he'd bitten his lip, Eridan slowly pushed himself up from the ground, a sickeningly smug smile across his face.

"I don't see why the fuck you're looking so smug. You're the one on the ground with no weapons." Vriska snarled, disgusted at his expression. An odd feeling of rage passed through her system which ordinarily she could control fairly well, but at that moment in time all she wanted to do was wipe that smile off his face in any way possible.

"Wwhy? Because you're holdin' a shotgun, an' you've only got one hand. It kinda requires twwo, as far as I knoww," Eridan snorted. "Hey, Wriska. If you're happy an' you know it, clap your han-"

But then he did not get much further, as she launched herself at him, smacking his head with the barrel of the gun and surprising both of them in that he was not knocked out. Bloody high-bloods and their thick skulls. Heh.

* * *

><p><strong>== Doesn't look like they're getting anywhere soon, be Terezi<strong>

You are now Terezi Pyrope

Which cruel god had decided that pitting Terezi against Equius would have been a good idea? Probably the one that wanted to spite her after she announced that she hoped to be in his group. Life could be a bitch sometimes. Still, she was doing well enough so far.

Being blind was a pain in the neck though, as she could essentially only see when she took a breath in through her nose. The rest of the time, she was relying heavily on her hearing. While it had improved a fair amount since the blinding, she still found it lacking. Although with Equius's lumbering about, Terezi was not in a position of worry about being unable to hear him.

But still… one hit, and she could likely be knocked out… with serious brain-damage. It was not a path she wanted to go down, and so she made sure to dodge the fists that rained down in her direction, dancing away with only centimetres to spare several times.

Sure, Equius was strong, but Terezi was fast.

Just as Group Seven's mentor predicted, Terezi was darting around the back of him, landing hits on his head with her cane while dodging the grasping hands.

A couple of minutes into their fight, a strange rolling fog began to fill the room, coloured a deep royal-purple. At first they both showed concern for it, but once they found that it had no effect on their mental or physical well-being, they continued the fight unimpeded.

'_Just like in my video games_,' she decided, and decided that she would have to rub that in her mother's face if she ever saw her again. '_I've just got to keep on dodging around his attacks to hit him on the back of the head, and I'm sorted_.'

"Can't even beat a blind girl! Wow." she cackled, provoking a grunt of disbelief from the boy before her.

"You're blind?" He stopped his attack for just a second, and yet this was more than enough time for her to leap up onto his back, wrapping her legs securely around his waist. "Fiddlesticks."

Without warning, for that would be a stupid-ass thing to do, Terezi appeared to embrace him around the neck, as if getting a piggyback-ride, and then the grip tightened… and tightened, python-like until Equius, blue in the face, slumped to the floor. Yet not before he tried to pry her arms off, gripping her forearms tight enough to fracture the bone and leaving vivid bruises across the length of her skin.

While she lay there, she smelt the strong odour of orange against glass, and decided that it was likely she would not be the first victor from these fights, but perhaps the kindest. Justice was not to be dealt by with death here.

Keeping the hold tight, just in case he was bluffing, Terezi clung to Equius, her legs trapped beneath his bulk. But she was not going to shift and let go. That could result in her defeat.

Following another painful minute, Equius was declared down, and Terezi announced the second victor of the fights.

* * *

><p><strong>== Well that was over quickly, be Karkat<strong>

You are now Karkat Vantas

Contrary to popular belief, Karkat was not an oblivious idiot. Okay, well maybe the idiot part, was correct, but certainly not the oblivious part, as anyone who had watched the number of romcoms he had was able to read the _signs_. And the _signs_ were being pretty fucking clear at this point in time. They were saying 'holy crap, boy, Nepeta is flushing redder for you than a tomato when it realises the salad has no dressing on'.

Not that he got what 'flushing red' was, but it made sense in his mind… somehow.

With a heavily conflicted expression, Nepeta stood before him, and flicking her wrists, allowed the blades hidden in her sleeve to slide out. A pretty good display, but it was obvious in her expression that she was going to find it hard to hurt him.

"Hey Karkitty." she smiled.

"What is it with girls giving me fucking awful nicknames?"

"It's purrfectly decent!" Nepeta retorted with a small yet still feral grin. "Don't you give people nicknames?"

"No. It pisses them off."

For the first part of their fight, they circled each other, trying to figure out the others fighting style, they told themselves. Yet really, it was just both of them waiting to see who would attack first. Deciding that someone had to do _something_, Karkat slashed forwards with a scythe, a move that was easily deflected by Nepeta and her Wolverine-lass claws.

Following this, it was Karkat attacking, trying to get the fight over and done with, with Nepeta near effortlessly defending. Neither was putting in much of an effort, honestly, until the same purple fog that had emerged in Equius and Terezi's dome began to diffuse into their air.

Suddenly, the fight was all too different. No longer concerned about the others safety, the real action began. Filled with a vast rage, Karkat slashed and diced at her skin with little care. Most missed or were blocked, such was the nature of his fury, but a good number did not, and she was soon covered with all manner of lacerations. The cat-girl's style of fighting was strange and almost feline-like as she crouched and sprang at him from all angles, claws outstretched. This was no longer about just knocking out, it appeared that they now meant to kill, as a strange blue tint took over their irises.

Odd, blue blades were thrust towards him, and it took all he had to knock them away with the scythes, for now he was the one solely defending. But she was not without fault, and made several errors, creating openings for him to slash her with his scythes.

Claws and teeth rained down upon him as the clawed-girl pounced, knocking him off his feet (they were nearly the same size, bless his bruised ego) and making him let go of the scythes. With a dull sound, they scraped across the concrete flooring to the other side of the bubble-like arena.

Now she had him weapon-less, she exploited his weakness, trying to cut his skin just _once_ damn-it-all, but it seemed a strange sense of desperation filled the boy, and he fought with vigour to prevent even _one_ cut forming on his grey skin, whereas she had a number of lacerations leaking olive blood, and had managed to have a chunk of hair hacked off.

With a strange, animalistic yowl, she pinned him to the ground with her knees and, after throwing her arms upwards, plunged them back down, aiming her claws at his face… but he rolled, the edge of a blade just catching the tip of his ear, and quickly reached for his weapons.

Smack!

The grump threw the handle of the sickle behind him, catching her in the head with it just before another attempted pounce. While he quickly pulled himself to his feet, the girl nursed her split lip, glaring at him with her usually huge eyes screwed _narrow_.

She hissed at him, she actually hissed, and had they been in their right frame of minds, he would have snorted. Weird-ass cat role-players. Coughing, as the intensity of the purple fog was getting pretty ridiculous by now, he tried another attack, because she was just sitting there looking smug and tiny and _why the hell was someone so innocent looking so infuriating_?

Swish swoosh swish!

The metal of the scythes flew towards her, once more effortlessly blocked, but it was clear that the cat-girl was getting tired. And sure enough, after the eighth hit, her arm muscles gave in, allowing him to get his blade right up against her neck, stopping her from moving given her position: backed right up the glass walls of the bubble.

And with a 'dong!' as her head hit this glass, he smacked her in the centre of her forehead with the hilt of the scythe. Hard enough to knock her out. Hard enough to end the fight, and while the purple was sucked from their bubble, Karkat slowly came back to consciousness. What had just happened?

"Karkat Vantas, third victor."

* * *

><p><strong>== I've got a bad feeling about that purple stuff. Be Kanaya<strong>

You are now Kanaya Maryam, and were you yourself, you would have concluded that the nature of the 'purple stuff' is to cause heightened aggression

True to the conclusion that she would have made had she been in the right frame of mind, as soon as the purple gas began to be piped in, she found herself in the oddest state of anger.

Tavros had shortly revealed his party trick of still being able to walk, and _why hadn't he told her_? Had she not shown immense patience? Had she not been kind and supportive to him, where Vriska had not? Hadn't she?

Little bastard.

Had no one told him _not_ to piss off the girl with a bloody chainsaw? In the few seconds before the smoke polluted his mind with anger, he felt a shriek of panic at the cry of an engine, bringing power to the chainsaw and making the little teeth whir round and round, willing and ready to bite into his flesh.

Their fight was short, but very, very bloody. It seemed that the Russian had a lot of pent up rage within her, perhaps from keeping so calm in the entirety of the time she had been in T.R.O.L.L. But whatever the reason, it was all being unlocked and unpacked from where it had been carefully packed in the recessed of her heart.

Tavros was not without anger, however. What malicious siren constantly seduced a boy with touches and kisses, and then pushed him away? Who even did that? He was weak and pathetic, sure. But there was a new level of cruelty, a level which could only be reached when you messed about with someone's emotions, and Vriska Serket was sitting cosily on this level like it was nobodies business. And yet, this was not the only fuel to his rage, for he knew full well of Kanaya's crush on the Brit, and even if the siren was a cold bitch who enjoyed messing with him, damn it, she was _his_ siren, and no bisexual jade-blood was going to take that from him.

The jousting spear in his hand seemed to spur him on, and with a smooth motion, he stabbed it forwards, catching her full on in the stomach, the metal slicing in through her skin a good inch before she leapt back, revving the chainsaw into a good steady throb.

Unlike with Nepeta and Karkat, who were so consumed by their anger that they could not speak, the Russian found words flowing to her lips.

"You're overconfident. Cocky." she spat, her accent growing thick and heavy without the conscious restraints placed on it. "You think you can beat me just because you have legs again? You forget that when you had them before, you were still useless-"

And at the word 'useless' the skin on the bridge of his nose crinkled and he hurled the lance at her, for like the previous two affected by the purple smoke, he could not talk. Unlike the previous two, however, he could not make a single noise.

The Russian's rage was icy-cold and smooth. Condensation on a glass. A sharp blue-grey. His, an animalistic fury composed of repression and instinct. Yet silent. Vivid orange.

Which was funny, really, because that was the exact colour that burst from his veins when she grazed his shoulder. The tip of the teeth just touched the surface, and his arm went limp, and his skin burnt with pain, but he did not make a sound, could not make a sound.

He seemed to give up, and his body tumbled to the ground, and she was on it in an instant.

Left foot on his chest, pinning him to the ground, because he was so weak it took little to keep him down. Right foot set behind, for balance. A good stance was needed when you were about to undertake such a task. Her fingers clenched around the handle of the chainsaw tightly, white knuckles showing up through the grey.

The teeth dug down, sawing first through the skin, then the muscle and ligaments and then met bone, but it was a good chainsaw, and so little effort was needed before it met muscle and skin once more. And then, skin, muscle, bone, muscle and skin again as the metal travelled through the other leg.

His mouth hung open, yet no sound emerged as the chainsaw passed through the first leg. A distasteful orange coated the weapon and the wielder, making her sneer at how it clashed with the grey-green of the jumpsuit. But at that second, Tavros awoke once more.

White drifted through the Hispanic boy, and it shattered the influence of the purple mist and shook him awake, only to be met with pain. And then the noise came, a strange rasping shriek that repeated over and over like a bird. The white of the pain faded into red, and he felt it differently, making the shrieks turn into a howl of disbelief.

She did no more, and watched. There was little chance that he could beat her now. What could he do? Bite her knee caps?

What remained of his legs were two stumps, severed mid-thigh with the muscles of the amputated limbs twitching in their position across the sticky orange-brown floor.

Red turned to black and Tavros collapsed, from blood-loss, from pain, from shock.

The purple that hung in the air was removed, cruelly, giving Kanaya a chance to see what she had done. '_Ohgodohgodohgod_…'

"Kanaya Maryam, first victor."

* * *

><p><strong>==Bounce back to spider-bitch<strong>

You are now Vriska Serket, the spider-bitch

It had not been the cries of terror and pain that alerted her of Tavros's immense failure, but rather the splatter of orange that coated the walls of the bubble to the side. Shit. Something bad had happened to Tavros.

But she did not have time to check on him, despite how a vein of anger pulsed through her body at the idea of someone else messing with him (that was her job, bloody meddling Kanaya) so instead she vowed to get her fight over sooner. Group Eight were going to come out on top, damn it, if it was the last thing she did. Vriska was not going to let Tavros try to screw up another thing.

Besides, she was currently groping about on the floor for her glasses, which had been knocked off in a particularly violent burst of close-combat. Not that Eridan fared much better… speaking of which, he commented, "Wwoww, you hawe really shit wision."

"I'd hit you, but I can't see where you are."

"Wwhere are my glasses?"

"I think I've found them."

"Wwell shit." he cursed. They each had found the other's glasses. "Okay, let's be refined about this. You throww me mine, and I'll throww you yours. Deal?"

"Fine. On the count of three."

And then in unison, "Three, two, one."

But neither glasses were thrown.

"I guess neither of us trusts the other then." Vriska smirked, not that her opponent could see. Sliding his glasses onto her face, she squinted. His vision was indeed better than hers. Damn. Oh well, it was better than no vision at all she guessed. But this was soon rectified when she used this slightly improved vision to charge forward and grab her glasses from his grip while he was still bragging about how little she could see.

Vriska would have snapped his glasses or something to ensure victory, but she guessed that he needed _something_ to even out the playing field. There, her good deed for the year: done.

As expected by now, the strange purple gas had since begun to filter into the room, yet Vriska found herself completely immune. Eridan, on the other hand, was not so lucky. Vriska, alarmed by this, found another reason to get the battle over with quicker.

After another couple of minutes, the tables had turned on their fight, and Eridan had gained back the shotgun, with Vriska's weapon being pulled from her grip and shoved through the belt loop at the back of Eridan's boiler suit.

His rage took the form of a deep, throbbing red. Desperation and pride fuelled him, and with a _ck ck **bang**_, a bullet buried itself deep into the flesh of Vriska's left leg. How cruel, given that she had already lost her left eye and arm, to now attempt to destroy her leg.

"I'm fed up a' your shit," he snarled. So he could talk, interesting. Casting the gun aside, he grabbed her by the collar and pushed her up against the wall, barracuda-like teeth on full display as he pulled his lips back in a vague approximation of a smile. "But lets talk about it ciwilised."

"Ciwilised?" Vriska snorted, resulting in the back of her head being smashed against the glass. "Oh? Is that what you call being civilised? Or is being ciwlised something different?"

"Shut it, bitch." While she was indeed silent, she chose instead to knee him in the groin area none too delicately, making him fall to the ground with a whimper.

With a strange lumbering motion, Vriska dragged herself away from him to assess the damage of the bullet wound. Well, it had not hit the bone, but she was not sure whether that was good or bad… She was the one to _inflict_ damage, not make it better. Gosh.

Perhaps she could dig it out... and… no, no no _no_, nope. Okay. Bad idea. Ouch, no. She would _not_ be going down that route agai- and then more pain as the prince grabbed her by her mane of hair.

"Didn't your parents teach you it's rude to pick people up by their fucking hair?" she spat as she was yanked to her feet. Her standing position was short lived, because the bullet embedded in her leg brought such a pain that she soon folded down into a slump once more. So this time, he made sure to grab her around the waist for support. This was going to be a decent end to the battle, he decided, and it could not be done while kneeling.

Lousy goddamn stupid Eridan.

If she could just get her knife, goddamn it! Then she could deal with him in whichever way she wanted. Ugh. How could she get it away from him? She would need to distract him somehow… aha! Well that would certainly distract him, but it was such a cheesy, overused plan. In fact, Vriska was fairly certain that it would probably not work outside fiction. But hell, it was worth a shot, and it would be good to wipe that frustrating smirk off his face. Besides, he was clearly delusional, so perhaps he wouldn't remember it.

"Didn't yours teach you not to be a' insufferable bitch?"

"Who taught you how to be so witty? Give me their name, I clearly have some touching up to do." she smirked.

"Howw can you be actin' like this noww?" His anger had brought them nose to nose as he yanked her closer to intimidate her. This did the exact opposite of the desired effect as she pulled him closer and planted a kiss right on the lips. It caught him completely by surprise, and as soon as he began his vague guess at kissing back, she pulled the knife from his belt and bit down sharply on his lower lip, her new pointed teeth easily biting the skin of his mouth.

"Fucks sake!" he spluttered, spitting out a little blood. "You bit right through my fuckin' lip!"

But his anger was short lived as she suddenly held the recently reacquired knife flush against his neck, and the reason for the kiss became all too clear. A few beads of purple began to prick up on his skin as the blade started to bite into him. "As if I'd actually like you, fish-face. I mean, with a chin like that… hell no."

Then she quickly ended it by smacking him in the head once more, leaving him no time to ponder just how bad his butt chin was. It seemed that the third time was the charm, and he slumped to the ground, shortly followed by herself, as she could not support herself without his arms wrapped around her torso, due to the injured leg.

Something she noticed as she dropped to the ground, was that an odd series of ants crawling up his collar seemed to be collapsing into his purple blood… okay, somebody had lost too much blood today.

Her head conked against the ground, making her blackout as well, just as her announcement filled the glass bubble. "Vriska Serket, fourth victor."

* * *

><p><strong>== Be the princess<strong>

You are now Feferi Peixes, the ex-princess, really

Unfortunately for her, the odd purple gas had only worked on Sollux, and not herself. And she found herself not really wanting to attack him, since she was getting a bit of a crush on him. But times were rough, and only the fittest would survive this sort of natural selection, so obviously, she decided to fight.

Wielding her 2x3dent, she made sure to keep Sollux at bay, finding that he had become oddly mindless in his attacking since the purple stuff had infiltrated the air. In this mindless state, he was revealing something that he probably wouldn't have in another situation. Because, hell, there were fucking laser beams coming from his eyes, and Feferi had not noticed such a thing previously.

Analyzing the situation as fast as she could, she rather obviously deduced that as long as the glasses stayed on, she would be okay in the laser department. But even without that, he was still pretty adept at fighting, which he had shown her. Although Feferi herself was not without skills, and they found themselves to be fairly evenly matched… at first.

Around ten minutes in, all of the other teams but one had heard their announcements. It seemed that Gamzee and Aradia were still going for it, with Aradia flitting around the edges of the wall to dodge his clubs.

Hop!

She dodged another beam of red and blue energy, her gaze resting momentarily on the sight of Vriska and Eridan full on kissing in what was supposed to be a fight! Hang on? Feferi's mind was now distracted. And when the opponent is a mindless machine shooting at you without abandon, focus is important.

But inevitably, she found herself thinking '_Wait, just, what is he thinking of_?' and at this trail of thought, a beam caught her square in the chest, throwing her back to meet the wall with a THUNK.

By the time she had slid to the bottom in an inelegant pile, she was unconscious, and Sollux declared the fifth winner. And so, She watched from above, displeased at how their battle had ended. There was only one battle left to be completed.

* * *

><p><strong>== Wait, how the hell is Gamzee gonna react to that stuff? Be Aradia<strong>

You are now Aradia Megido, about to see how Gamzee is going to react to that stuff

Honestly, he was so harmless that Aradia was having a hard time defeating him. Initially, when the gas had begun to filter in he had laid down on the floor to stare at the 'motherfucking miracles' in the colours… and then… well.

To put it simply, it was not a pretty sight.

The once gentle, harmless Gamzee had transformed into a cruel, cold-blooded… creature. His first action had been to grab Aradia by the arm and snap the wrist, as if it were no more than a brittle twig. Well, judging by the scream given by said twig, it was likely to be something with more pain receptors than a branch.

This scream seemed to bring delight to his eyes, Aradia was horrified to discover. Shit. Shit shit shit. Shi- well, you get the idea.

The next few minutes were composed of the Parisian dodging his wild, vicious attacks, occasionally retaliating with little effect. Why had someone decided a pair of clubs would be a good weapon for him? What kind of idiot would even do that? For such a lanky kid, he easily smashed the clubs around, creating small nicks in the glass where he had narrowly missed her head.

"Would you stop dodging?" he said, in a strange soft tone, the kind a father would use while narrating a story to his child. It then turned loud, harsh and furious, like she was the kid that just peed on the business man's expensive suit. "_It's pissing me the motherfuck off_."

"Maybe _I'd_ stop if _you_ stopped trying to kill me." Aradia spat, ducking another blow. At the moment his anger was making his aim wild, but she knew it was only a matter of time before he focused the rage into an effective weapon. And when that happened, then her luck would be out. Damn, if only she'd pestered Vriska into giving her some of the luck… even if it _was_ a load of conceited bullshit, it would have made Aradia feel a little bit better about the situation.

"Shut up. _Shut the motherfuck up, motherfucker_."

Okay, maybe if she kept taunting him, he would remain in the 'too pissed off to think clearly' mode. Maybe? Alternatively, it could send him off into a blind rage which would destroy all in his sight: her. Only her in fact. There would be no hiding. So she said slyly, "Is that the only word in your, euh, verbal repertoire, I believe it is said?"

"You think you're so motherfuckin' cute, with your little French words. _Well it's motherfuckin' not_."

"Takes one to know one, no?"

"I didn't get that."

"As in, you're not cute. It was not that difficult to, euh… comprendre… _understand_! Not that difficult to understand, connard."

"_There you go again._ No one thinks it's cute, you know." The smirk on his face was cruel as he added, "_No wonder the weirdo with a motherfucked up colour scheme thinks you're motherfuckin' annoying_."

Ouch, low blow. But come on. In the middle of a fight to the death, wondering whether Sollux actually liked her or not was not really a thought that was at the front of her mind. Aradia had bigger fish to fry.

Her whip cracked in the air where his head had been just a millisecond prior. Hell, but he was _fast_. If she could just get his weapons away from him… maybe she would be in for a chance? Keeping him in 'too pissed off to think clearly' mode was all well and good, but she then realised it would do little to end the fight.

"Et bien, voyons! Do not try to pose innocent on that front! Everyone and their aunt can see than you have a raging crush on Tavros." Well, that shut him up. "And if we are going down the, uh, destroying all hopes of them liking us back route, then I will say this now. I really doubt he likes you back. Have you even spoken to him? Ever?"

"What do you think I am? A coward? _Of course I motherfuckin' have_. We speak pretty much every night. Well, rap."

"Well he has never once mentioned you to me. Sad, no?"

Okay, wow. There was something disturbing happening to his eyes… they seemed to be turning a strange light yellow, near white. On most people this would have appeared normal. Yet for the trolls, they were so far beyond any hope of looking like humans again, the sight of such human characteristics on them was near disturbing.

"_You shut the motherfuck up_. You don't know anything about this."

"Oh, no. I've only been a good friend to him for the past four years. Pretty much irrelevant to you who's known him, what, a month? Maybe a little more?"

Both of their breath was a little hitched due to the fighting going on while they spoke. So perhaps speaking while trying to dodge his attacks was not the best idea she had ever had, but living a bit longer was worth the stitch, right?

In another attempt to get the clubs off him, she flicked out the whip, but instead of hitting the smooth plastic, it wrapped around his arm, and he quickly grabbed it in his fingers, yanking it from her grasp. Shit.

"Looks like the tables have motherfuckin' turned, sister." God, but that grin was terrifying.

Okay okay okay. Right. No weapon, pretty breathless and inside a giant glass bubble with an insane Australian guy. There were quite a few ways this situation could be better, but at least his accent was nice… half the time.

Wait… glass bubble? His clubs had certainly chipped the walls of the dome several times, and maybe if she got him to hit these weak points again… this could work. Aradia was not sure what she would or _could_ do once she was out, but it was a start.

"Anyway, have you heard the rumours?"

"_What_? I don't think we have time for motherfuckin' gossiping right now, sis."

"Oh, just thought you might be interested, peut-être. Since it's about Tavros."

"Go on."

Oh god, he really did like the kid. Somewhere, Aradia felt bad for taunting him like this. But it was either she won and he was knocked out (with some bruised feelings), or he won and she died. Personally, she preferred her method. Less people died. Namely her.

"Sorry?" she called, making sure to roll her r's in the back of her throat so that her accent sounded thicker.

"_I said fuckin' go on_!" he yelled, and smashed the clubs where she had been just a millisecond ago for emphasis. Which really, probably was not the best idea if he wanted information from her.

Of course, Aradia had picked this spot specially, and when his weapons met the fractured glass, the bubble shattered, falling down in small shards designed to be safe. Evidently, the head-honcho had realised that one of the punk-ass kids was likely to break them.

"Oh, I see what you were motherfuckin' doing," he said with a low chuckle, brushing shards from his shoulders as she fled into the spaces between domes, drawing confused looks from Karkat and Kanaya. Well they could keep those looks. She had no time to ponder such things. "_I see it. Very clever_."

Shit, he was somehow making his voice echo, the sound waves bounding off all of the glass and confusing her sensitive ears. He could be anywhere!

Making sure to keep her back to the glass, she edged her way through the vast and dark room containing the fighting bubbles; the only light coming from the domes, with strange long shadows being cast from their occupants.

'_Don't look into the domes. __C'est la dernière chose dont tu as besoin_.' she told herself, for indeed it was the last thing she needed. But no sooner had she decided this, she caught a glimpse of the orange mess that had once been the floor of Tavros and Kanaya's bubbles.

His legs lay far from his body, and as for the rest of him… it was no where in sight. Evidently they had removed him instantly to see what they could do for him, but Aradia could not see why they would not try to reattach the legs. Kanaya was still in the dome, however, having to face what she had done as some form of psychological punishment. Odd, since it was T.R.O.L.L that had driven her to commit such acts in the first place.

Speaking of Kanaya, she was making some strange jabbing motion at the air behind her, and-

"Hey sister," The words were breathy and right in her ear, the air expelled from his lungs brushing over the skin of her ear. "_You're not very good at hiding, you know_."

"Gah!" He was so loud, and so close that she jumped. But it was okay, she did not fall. Mostly because he had her pinned against the walls of Kanaya's bubble. Aradia could feel the slight vibrations in the skin of the back of her head as the Russian pummelled her fist on the glass in an attempt to stop him. It did little.

"Hey, sis, do you know what they do to mutant captors that betray the organisation they work for?"

Aradia turned her head away, not wanting to hear his lies spun on the spot… in case they turned out to be true.

"_I said, do you wanna know what they do to them_?"

"Fine!"

His voice became calm, eerily gentle again as he leaned back in close and whispered in her ear, "They kill them. First they gouge their eyes out for not seeing the mutants clearly in front of them. Then they rip their mouth's out for not telling. And finally, they take out their heart, because they're no longer worthy of the blood flowing through their veins."

At these lies, Aradia tightened her grip on his body, making sure his head couldn't reach her and bit down into his neck, sawing at the skin and muscle with her teeth. He thrashed about wildly, but she was so full of rage that she found the strength, and held him back and down.

Eventually she found a blood vessel, and his blood began to leave his body. Thankfully for him, it had not been a major vessel. But enough blood emerged that he fell to the ground unconscious.

And Aradia, realising what she had just done, spat out the flesh in her mouth, and the blood, and screamed. Having not realised he was still alive, she thought herself a monster, which in some ways, she was.

And something broke inside of her. And she was never the same girl again.

"Aradia Medigo, sixth and final victor."

* * *

><p><strong>== What the hell is this purple stuff? Can we be the Handmaid to find out? Is that something we can do?<strong>

It is something you can do, and so you are now the Handmaid, finding out what the purple stuff is

"You summoned me?" she said in her smooth tones. "Or maybe that was a Freudian slip of my mind."

"Someone's in a good mood, my," She grinned, turning her head a little so that the smile was noticed by her companion. Yet She did not her eyes off the fighting children in the bubbles far below. Something about their actions absorbed her. Weird. "Mind your horns on the ceiling. Have you seen your darling little warriors in action?"

The arena was a strange contraption, composed of a six hollow glass spheres implanted into a massive room. Almost like a circle of massive snow-globes, in which the inhabitants fought.

"Complete baloney. They're hardly warriors. Let's be honest here. One has only one arm, the other is about to lose his legs, poor kid. And the other… well maybe _he's_ a half decent cookie."

"Oh please. We all know that you hold some sort of affection for the boy simply because he is a certain somebody's descendant." She taunted. "Speaking of which, would you like to visit him?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I barely knew him. Besides, he's not really himself these days."

"But how would you know? As you said, you barely knew him. And you can't have visited him recently."

"Not recently for you. Recently for me."

The conversation was then closed on that particular subject. The Handmaid decided that there really was something menacing about how interested She was in watching the children fighting one another. Observing her from the corner of her eyes, she noticed how she had changed over the years with some regret. Although it was inevitable really. What had been seven years for the American had been over eighty for Her. Even if those seven years had been passed jumping about a certain selection of years. Stupid time errors. At least Doc Scratch had crashed early with her. That was a good thing… kind of…

Then, at precisely the same moment, all of the mini-arenas began to fill up with a purple fog that began at ground level before gradually filtering and dispersing into the rest of their air. "What's that purple gas?"

"It is a most interesting concoction, if I do say so myself. You recall I obtained an eye from that cerulean-blooded minx down there?"

"Vaguely."

"I extracted some of her DNA, and to cut a long story short, that is an powdered form of the mind affecting powers she has. Except I cannot use it for many specific areas at the moment. It only really seems to provoke anger in certain mutants. I had it tested on a group from the previous batches."

"Interesting."

"I thought it would be… fun to alter their aggression limits, since many seem dead set on not harming a soul."

"It's the human in them, I expect."

The battles continued, with Her pulling a face when her descendant was downed by the yellow-blood. She soon ordered a medic down there to remove the girl and check for any long lasting injuries.

"It is a good thing then, I suppose, that you have been teaching him to control those beams."

When the Handmaid saw how her descendant took down her opponent, she grimaced in a similar way to that of Her. But at least she had won, even if it had not been an elegant victory.

That, in itself, was something.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **(thank you for the people pointing out the errors in this! They've been corrected) c:

Thank you so much for over 10,000 hits! You guys are the best!

And AAAH I'm such an idiot! I forgot to write the 'your name is Nepeta blah blah' stuff at the end of last chapter! But it's there now, so you can check it out if you wish.

Sorry about the uber cheesy lame 'kiss to distract' rubbish! I thought a little sillyness would be good. And why did I decide a chapter long fight scene would be a good idea? I hope it's not too bad, especially the parts where I ramped up the gore… :s

And thank you for reading! ^^


	17. On retrieving arms and legs

Slice, slice, snip, "Shit." Slice, snip.

"How are you?" a voice asked from behind. Nepeta turned to see Aradia, her forearm encased in a cast.

"Could be better…" she replied, meeting the other girl's eyes briefly before looking away again.

In Nepeta and Karkat's battle, the later had hacked off a large chunk of her hair, so half of it was the fluffy elbow length it had been before, and the other half stopped at her shoulders. Ugh. But not anymore, she'd had to level it out, and she now sported a shoulder-length bob.

Having inherited bushy hair from her mother, she had never even considered having a short style. As expected, it had created a mass of curls around her face, and while it looked nice, Nepeta had really loved her long hair. It had made her feel like a lioness and… it reminded her of her mum. She had lost her parents when she was seven, so she was old enough to remember them, but had not gained any sort of inheritance or trinkets from them. Those had all been looted or destroyed.

All she had was herself, and her genes. Her hair was part of this, and the long hair that her mother had so loved when she was still around was now scattered in clumps about the floor, her claws having severed the strands.

Nepeta did not realise she was crying until Aradia commented, "Oh, are you upset?"

"What? No, I'm… I'm fine. Just, leave me alone." The tears were quickly scrubbed away, and the Arab waited until Aradia had left the room before breaking down properly.

'_What am I doing crying over hair? This is stupid_!' she mentally chided herself, but that did little to ease the tears. When she was no longer able to cry, Nepeta stood up from her previously curled up form and dried her face with her sleeve.

Quitting the bathroom, she stalked towards a dummy, unsheathing the blades from where they were hidden in her sleeves and attacked it furiously, ignoring the pain from her wounds. But… her stab wounds did not appreciate the fighting movements, and protested, with her green blood leaking through the stitches and wrappings.

"Aurgh!"

With a cry of pain she fell to the floor, clutching the worst cut, located on her side. Ugh, it was no use trying to take out her anger on the dummy. This was too painful to be of use to her.

It was strange not being able to feel her pony-tail brushing against the skin of her back. Wrong, almost. It was going to take a long time to get used to this short hair, she decided as she pulled her blue hat over her curls. At least the hat hid most of the damage.

"Nepeta," Their mentor approached the girl, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright, my dear?"

In response, Nepeta snapped, "I'm fine! Why does everyone keep on asking me?"

"Because we're not idiots. Listen, it's perfectly normal to feel conflicted over what went on in the fights-"

"It's not that I'm worried about," she realised. Sure, the hair had been a horrid thing to lose, but there was more to it and only now was she seeing the extent of her worry. "I can't remember most of the fight… I just remember kinda sparring with him, not very seriously or anything, and then… nothing. I woke up in a hospital room with cuts all ofur me and a chunk of hair missing…"

The mentor's eyes narrowed. "Strange. That does not normally happen in the fights. Although I have heard similar stories from the other mentors."

"So it wasn't just me?"

"No, Nepeta. Although be thankful that you are still yourself now. I have noticed a change in behaviour in Aradia ever since she was released from her hospital room."

"I've noticed too," frowned Nepeta. "But I'm sure it's purrfectly normal. She'll get ofur it in a few days."

From her position on the running machine at the other side of the room, Aradia listened as they concluded, "I hope so."

"Hey, I'm, uh, sorry I snapped at you just then."

"Think nothing of it. You are going through things I could not even begin to imagine," the mentor smiled. "Though having said that, I'm glad you apologised. I do not want to see any diva-like behaviour from this group."

* * *

><p><strong>== Let's be Kanaya<strong>

Why the hell not? You are now Kanaya Maryam, attempting to enjoy your meal

The beef stroganoff was quite delightful, she concluded as she continued with her meal, despite the accusing glares and looks of horror from her fellow mutants.

Like the others affected by the tyrian fog, Kanaya could not remember a thing of what had gone on in the battles inside the glass bubbles. Well… okay, she could remember some things, but these memories were all blurred and confusing as hell. Like trying to remember a dream the following day, and only catching snippets when the right word triggers a memory.

Pretending to be aloof and ignoring everyone was getting harder and harder, though. Kanaya knew full well what she had done under the influence of whatever drug was pumping through her system… she had cut Tavros's legs clean off-

"Hey! I've got a bone to pick with you." Vriska's voice was pumped full with anger and… something else. But Kanaya dreaded to find out what that was.

Ah. She had known full well this event would come, but she could not say she was looking forward to it. She did not expect, however, to be grabbed by the front of her jumpsuit. Rude.

"Yes?" the jade-blood responded.

"Can it with your pretend 'Oh Im So Innocent Look At Me' bullshit," Unlike Vriska, Kanaya had noticed how the rest of the trolls had silenced. Great, she was starting a scene. "Which part of your brain thought 'Hey, Lets Chop Off His Legs' was a good idea to beat him? All you had to do was smack his head against the wall hard enough to pass out, and you'd be done. I mean, I'd only just gotten him the ability to walk again and you took it away."

Inserting a casually raised eyebrow at precisely the right moment, Kanaya interjected with, "Careful, Vriska. It's starting to sound like you care about him."

"First of all, that's not true. And secondly, the only reason I'm pissed off with you, is that if he dies then I die. And, yeah, I don't really want to die."

"That is comprehensible."

"Ugh, you've made me meander!"

"Listen, Vriska. I don't want to fight with you as well. I didn't plan to injure Tavros in such a way, and I cannot begin to fathom what got me so worked up," '_Wow, _that's_ a lie_.' She could remember a little of her motivations, and part of them had the distinctive tang of jealousy to them. Understandable, really, since Vriska was showing more interest in Tavros that her. So naturally, the twisted logic created by the fog decided that such things merited having legs sawn off. "That fog affected our minds somehow and made us do things we wouldn't have ordinarily done. I'm not saying that I'm faultless, but… I hope this has not damaged any friendship that could have… uh… resulted between us…"

Vriska just stared at her with a near gob smacked expression, before a wide smirk broke across her face, making her far too attractive for her own good, in Kanaya's opinion. "I can't believe this. I come to you wanting to smack you around for sawing Tavros's legs off, and you say that you hope it won't affect our friendship? Are you having a fucking laugh?"

The Brit's howls of laughter filled the room, only quietened for a few seconds as Karkat yelled, "Hey, leave her alone!"

"Of course, Mr-oh-so-dashing-prince-to-the-rescue." Vriska smirked, and sat herself down at the opposite end of the bench to Kanaya. She was soon joined by Sollux, sitting himself opposite to the spider-bitch. Their training session had dragged on a little due to the loss of a team mate and the resulting imbalance of their group. With a grin reeking of conspiracy, Vriska slid a little closer to Kanaya, somehow oblivious to the flush beginning to rise on her face. "Well either way, you're being left behind in the ratings."

"What?" The word's meaning hit her.

"The ratings? Obviously that's what these battles are for," Vriska said, working the words around the food in her mouth. Equius, from across the room, looked horrified at the blue-blood's behaviour. "Didn't your mentor tell you? Well, anyway, nine is first, then ours, then yours, and finally, the lamiest of them all, Group Seven. Yours only got up there because you wasted no time sawing Tavros's legs off and won the battle first."

"There is a list?"

"Sure. Here," Vriska pulled a folded slip of paper from her pocket. "You came first."

"Yes, I remember that being announced."

"Hey, wathn't the Handmaid thuppothed to keep that?" Sollux inquired once he saw what she had handed Kanaya.

"Does it even matter?" Vriska snorted. "It's just a piece of paper."

Sollux shrugged, and went back to chatting with the less bouncy than usual Feferi.

Kanaya had won first, so her name was at the very top of the list, followed by Terezi, then Karkat, Vriska, Sollux and Aradia. Then the order for the losers: Gamzee, Feferi, Eridan, Nepeta, and then finally, Equius followed by Tavros.

"See, if you hadn't taken out Toreadork so early on, then my group would have been the top."

"Surely not. Even without Tavros's early defeat, your victories were ranked fourth and fifth. Group Nine's victories were second and third place, and Gamzee held Aradia off until the very end… See, they've tallied up points for it. If the less you have is the better, and seven got six points, with yours at fifteen, then realistica-"

"Yeah, I think we're done looking at the list." decided Vriska, plucking the sheet from the Russians hands, which was in turn ripped from her grip by a serene looking Handmaid.

"Thanks for swiping that from me," she said in a monotone voice, stuffing the sheet into a pocket. "So, since I'm apparently an errand dog now, I've been instructed to fetch you, Bearcat. Up."

"Ugh." Vriska made a face at the Handmaid's tall form, but stood up nonetheless. Whenever she was called out, it usually involved getting body-parts back… which was always good, considering she still lacked an arm.

* * *

><p><strong>== We haven't been Gamzee yet once. Be him<strong>

You are now Gamzee Makara

When the Aussie finally awoke after the battle, the first thing he registered was a nurse spooning green gloop into his mouth and getting him to swallow. Man… how long had he been out for that to be necessary?

"Good evening, Mr Makara. How are you feeling?" the nurse asked, pausing the force feeding for a few seconds. "You've been out for quite some time."

"Just let me screw my motherfuckin' head back on." said Gamzee, batting the spoon away. His memories from the fight were all dancing around in his head, too fast for him to get a proper understanding of them, but now and again one would slow enough for him to get a glimpse of it and think 'what the motherfuck happened there?'

The nurse was still rambling on about something, yet he ignored it, trying to grab onto anything in his mind, just so he could remember something of the fight. Without even thinking, his hand reached up to brush the skin of his neck, and BAM, pain shot through his nerve cells like fire.

A memory came. Aradia's painfully tight grip on his torso, teeth biting and ripping at his skin. Her body stood above his, clothes tinged a deep, dark purple with his blood.

Shit. The hand at his neck repositioned itself to his temples as he attempted to remember more but… it seemed that was all he was getting right now. Well… that was more than enough, really. He did not want to relieve being savaged by that Frenchwoman.

"I see you found your injury!" How was this nurse so chipper? "As I was saying, you're lucky we got to you so fast, as we were able to lessen the bleeding almost immediately. A form of plastic has been used to replace the section of blood vessel you lost, with small amounts of grown muscle and skin. We had some of your stem-cells available to us from the bank."

"I guess that was fuckin' lucky." he agreed and swivelled his body round, just until he was able to swing his legs off the side of the bed, and then stood.

"Whoa there. I know you purple-bloods heal fast, but you really should rest for a while longer. You're still weak."

"Doesn't feel that way, bro," he said, and left the room, the nurse following behind him closely. "So I have this weird feeling that I'm supposed to up and chill with a certain motherfucker."

"Eh… sorry?" The nurse, too confused to protest, brought his tablet before him and jotted down notes about how the mutant's condition was improving drastically.

"Do you know which room Tavbro is in?"

"Who?"

"Tavros. Can't imagine there's more than fuckin' one of him."

"Ah, no, he's right here," the man announced, remembering the instructions pertaining to any of the purple-bloods. Just keep them happy and high off the spoor slime, and you were golden. The nurse then led him off to the room Tavros was in, and stopped him briefly before entering. "From what the notes are saying on here, he's not going to be in great shape at all."

With a loud groan, the door was pulled open, and a very harried looking doctor quickly slid from the room, although her look of irritation soon dispelled when she saw whom it was. "Oh, apologies. I thought it was that Serket girl back again."

"Oh?" The nurse's interest was piqued at this potential gossip, as well as Gamzee's.

"She has returned numerous times to irritate my patient, and tell us how to do our jobs, since apparently it's somehow our fault he still cannot walk."

Can't walk? But he was only in the wheelchair because he was tired… Gamzee could remember seeing Tavros standing at the start of the battle…

Pushing the door open, he was horrified to see what had become of Tavros. The orange-blood's face clearly indicated that he had been expecting someone else through the door, but Gamzee ignored that, because despite the covering of the blanket, it was clear that his legs suddenly stopped existing mid-thigh.

"Hi, Gamzee," he smiled, although there was a fairly vacant look to his eyes that screamed 'heavy use of painkillers'. "How, uh, did your fight go?"

"Shit. I mean, motherfuckin' fine. Don't worry about me," Gamzee made sure to stop looking at the stumps of where his legs had been. "What, ok, what up and happened to your fuckin' legs, bro?"

With a confused look at where his feet should have been, Tavros frowned, "Don't know…"

"Perhaps, as I tried to explain to Ms Serket many times, you should come back when he is slightly more, ah, with it, as you youngsters say." Gamzee felt the grip of the olive-blooded doctor on his shoulders before he was whisked out. Well, Tavros's condition, both mentally and physically would explain Vriska's attitude anyway.

From the corner of his eye, he could just about see Tavros's out-of-it wave before the door shut.

* * *

><p><strong>== Now follow Vriska<strong>

You are now following Vriska Serket

"Why didn't he send an errand boy or something if you're _so_ concerned about your ego?" the blue-blood smirked.

"Because I ain't taking you to Doc Scratch, I'm taking you to some other chick… not that he's a chick… wait…" The Handmaid paused, having confused herself, then shook her head. "Huh. You're skilled in making people meander from their original path, girl. And anyway there is an errand boy. He'll be accompanying us since I haven't got that technowhatyoumacallit implanted in my brain."

"Come again?"

"Those, eh, micro somethings."

"Microchips?" Vriska offered.

"Yes. Like you, I cannot work my way around this maze," She then hesitated, and it appeared as if she wanted to say more, but prevented herself from doing so. "They'll be here shortly."

And indeed they were. The errand boy, or girl in this case, gave a quick bow before leading them down the winding corridors. Vriska had not really noticed it before, but the ceilings of T.R.O.L.L were very high up, with all of the doors also made to accommodate tall people. In fact, she would not have even noticed if it was not for how the Handmaid, with her lofty height of over seven foot, barely brushed the ceiling with the upper ridge of her horns. How very odd.

They were then shown into a room: Her room.

The woman behind the desk stood, and while she herself was not particularly tall in comparison to the Handmaid, her horns made up for the difference. They were almost half the length of her body and completed the picture of arrogance She gave off.

"Ah, you must be Mindfang junior. I'd recognise those horns anywhere. Sit," She motioned towards a chair, which Vriska took eagerly; the walk to this room had been long. "Handmaid, you are dismissed."

"I think it would be wiser if I stayed." she insisted, her accent and words becoming a little more refined.

"While that may be true, I do not appreciate your blatant disregard for my orders. Now, you will go outside _now_," A vicious snarl wormed its way from Her mouth at the last word that made even Vriska shudder, thankful that the eerie pink eyes were not focused on her. Once the Handmaid had left, She turned back to the blue-blood after sitting behind the desk once more. "Good evening."

"Uh… hey?" Vriska was uncertain as on what to say. There was a strange power emanating from this mutant, whomever she was.

"You seem a lot more gutsy than the other cerulean-bloods. Although that has a lot to do with your upbringing. No daughter of Mindfang would raise limp, weedy children."

"Who the _fuck_ is-" Vriska began, as hell, way too many hints had been dropped about this woman, and goddamn it she wanted answers!

Yet she only got a few words in before She slammed her hand down on the table and cried, "_You _will_ be silent unless prompted_."

Vriska could do little more than nod meekly. This woman had to be that of the highest possible blood class: tyrian purple. Which was odd, considering that she could have sworn there was only ever one tyrian-blood at a time… Yet she certainly behaved like a true high-blood: the haughty, domineering attitude and violent mood swings.

"Now. I am the Imperial Condesce, and I trust that you will now hold your tongue. Impertinent pup," She snarled, then caught her words and laughed. "My, I'm beginning to sound like my lackeys. We cannot have that."

The Condesce dragged her fingers over the surface of her desk, and at her touch, a screen lit up. With a couple more swipes a portion of the wall began to show what She was seeing on her screen. A projection.

"Now. I have a proposal for you. Your team mate, the boy who was placed last in the rankings. What is his name again?" Her last sentence was more of a mutter as she brought up a list and scanned it briefly. "Ah, Tavros. He is currently lacking legs, and you are missing an arm. Unlike my colleague, _I_ can get both back for you."

"And the catch?"

"Ha! You're a bold one," Out of nowhere, the Condesce slapped Vriska full around the face, her knife-like nails leaving small lacerations across the bridge of her nose. "Now, what did I just say about speaking out of turn? Ah yes. Don't. But you _were_ correct. There it a catch for these limb replacements. You know of Doc Scratch? You can speak now, girl."

"Yes." Ugh, Vriska hated how demure she was having to act.

"Well, he has developed a soft spot for this girl. Aradia Medigo," With a brush of the screen, a photo of Aradia appeared on the wall, one while talking to Doc Scratch. And of course, to be evasive and irritating, the shot was taken from behind the chair, so none of him could be seen, save for one hand and the cuff of his green shirt. She would simply have to ask her later what he looks like. "If he becomes too attached, then he will be useless to me. So, I need you to dispose of Aradia for me. I know you are capable of it."

Vriska was too stunned to speak for several moments, before answering back with a hesitant, "What?"

"I want you to kill her."

"I got that much." she replied in a dead-pan voice.

"You are definitely Mindfang's descendant," She sighed. "Let's not play a game of smoke and mirrors though. We both know that you've led to the deaths of countless people. And not only peasant bloods. You've even killed some of my purple bloods."

The strange fins on her face swished back and forwards at this, as if in anger. Yet the fixed expression of mild-amusement masked any irritation she could be feeling at that.

"How do you know?" she demanded, because hell, there was little use trying to play innocent.

"Oh, we've known for years about how your mother earns her money. We've kept tabs on all of the offspring, and yet… you Serket's have always been a tricky bunch. And somehow your mother evaded our capture… until she stupidly called a doctor about your condition. I've always suspected that it had something to do with the Zahhak's sphere of influence. That man could conceal a flying whale if he so wished."

"As in Equius's family?"

Another sharp slap graced her face, but the question was answered nonetheless. "Yes. Your mother and his father have connections. Hmm… I seem to have meandered."

The picture of Aradia was still fixed on the screen, and it was then when something clicked inside of the blue-blood. Remembering her mentor's face and comparing it with that of the Parisian, Vriska found that they were oddly similar.

"Are Aradia and my mentor related?"

With a confused, yet slightly amused expression, the Condesce replied, "That is entirely irrelevant, and all I shall say is this; sometimes people look similar without being related."

Then, with a flick of her wrist, she made a gesture that clearly said 'You are dismissed', and Vriska, not wanting to spend a minute more with this insane woman gladly got to her feet and made her way to the door. Before she left, she could just about hear Her saying, "You _will_ reconsider."

No sooner had she shut the door, the Handmaid was whisking her away from the room.

"What did she want?"

"Why?"

"Listen, if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But just remember this. Do _not_ get involved in her harebrained ploys. Got it?" the Handmaid ordered. "It will only end badly for you."

With an eyeroll, Vriska turned away from the woman's gaze. Those dark red eyes were unsettling, though no where near in the same league as those of the Condesce. The Handmaid's gaze was concerned while the Condesce's was frightening. And while both were vague shades of red, one was warm and the other cold.

From where she was walking beside the tall woman, Vriska had a good vantage point to see her mentor's face. Indeed, there was something about Aradia and the Handmaid that screamed they were related at the very least. Well, their faces were not entirely similar, and most of this was due to how the Handmaid was a lot older than Aradia at the moment. But there were times when she appeared younger, and in these moments there was a likeness to be seen.

And at the same time, there was something almost alien about both the Handmaid and the Condesce's faces. They were longer, narrower and sharper in bone structure than the average human… and having said that, Vriska notices a similarity in her own face at this. And indeed the rest of the mutants, to a lesser extent. There was more to this story than meets the eye, certainly.

* * *

><p>Your name is Equius Zahhak.<p>

You love being STRONG.

You are so strong, you would surely be the class of the elite legion of RUFFANNIHILATORS. And while such calling would be quite honerable, you would prefer to join the ranks of the ARCHERADICATORS, perhaps the most noble echelon the imperial forces have to offer. Unfortunately, you SUCK AT ARCHERY and have not successfully fired a SINGLE ARROW. Because you are too STRONG. Infact, you've broken so many bows it's BORDERING ON FETISHISTIC. You have to stop. But addiction is a powerful thing.

You have a great appreciation for THE FINE ARTS, and use your connections to acquire PRICELESS MASTERPIECES – highly respected NUDE PORTRAITS. It demonstrates the PUREST PHYSICAL IDEAL sought by those that profuse a LOVE OF STRENGTH. Most, however, think you are merely EXCEPTIONALLY PERVERSE and enjoy looking at the nudity. It makes you FURIOUS. Like almost everything, really.

You have an interest in ROBOTICS, and to help ALLEVIATE YOUR RAGE you frequently make robots which you beat the crap out of, because you are STRONG. And despite their complexities they still BREAK.

A couple of months ago, you began to take on a GREY HUE, at around the same time as your adoptive sister. You were then taken to the DOCTOR and no amount of MATERIAL WEALTH could bribe the authorities to LET IT SLIDE.

Lousy goddamns stupid radiation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** (Equius, your paintings, why?) And Gamzee is the hardest character to write as ever. Even read gamtav to try get their interactions right ARG just let me die in this corner :u

Onto serious stuff. First point, I may have more frequent chapters, but have them slightly shorter? Or would you prefer the lengthier, less often chapters? Aah, I'll have to come up with more chapter titles *dies*

And finally, I put this on the tumblr page, and I'll say it here as well. Quite a few of you have found my personal accounts on tumblr and the like. Please do not write on them that I'm the author of this. If you must mention it, send me a private message please, as a number of people on there are from school and they have a pretty poor view on fanfiction! Thanks!

And thank you for reading, as always ^^


	18. A decision is made

**== Did you cheat us out a chance to see Vriska when she first realised Tavros's legs had been removed? Be past Vriska!**

Error, unable to be requested character in such a time

**== Fine, just be Vriska then**

You are now Vriska Serket, and you have come to a decision about something

Vriska had decided to tell Tavros about the ghosts.

As with her previous sneakings, the olive-blooded medic caught Vriska before she managed to slip into the room where Tavros was being kept. It was always 'you will disturb him blah blah' and 'he needs to rest blah blah'. '_Can't they see I'm trying to make him less weak? Idiots_.'

Because really, at his current state, he could not possible be any _more_ weak and pathetic… although maybe pathetic was a little harsh on the boy. Besides, focusing all of her energies on his recovery made the ghosts a little less vibrant.

Without his presence, Group Eight had just turned into a sarcastic, slightly irritable duo. And needless to say, the Handmaid did not offer much comedic relief. The ghosts picked up on this instantly and plagued her with increased gusto, and, god, she really just wanted to tell someone already. Because, well, Tavros sort of knew already, did he not? He had caught her in the act of speaking to one of the ghosts, and frankly that was good enough at this place in time.

"Come oooooooon! Just one visit! I haven't seen him since yesterday."

Damn, she just needed to get the secret of the ghosts of her chest. It was getting too much. Even now, she could see their faces at the corners of her vision, sliding and dragging themselves through the long corridors. Their voices whispering and demeaning her throughout the night and days.

"We are concerned that you are stressing him. And since he's already going through an incredibly high-level of stress, I would rather you stayed away."

Oh hell to the no. There was no way after all of the thinking, and mental debating that had gone on; after the meals left barely touched throughout the day and after the bruises she had gotten from the Brobot for not paying attention, just to come up with the decision to tell him, that she was going to be denied this.

So as she had done before, Vriska placed her fingers at her temples, felt the psychic energy roll up within her, and ordered, "Let. Me. In. Oh, and don't interrupt until I'm done."

And unbeknownst to her, the Condesce watched and grinned. Very good, Mindfang junior.

Tavros's doctor stepped aside to let her in, and Vriska quickly sneaked in, just in case her mind-control was a little off that day.

Unlike in the visits of the day before, Tavros was a little more himself as they had placed a leash on the amount of painkillers he had been placed under. What remained of him had been propped up against a fair amount of pillows (Vriska claimed full credit for there being more than one cushion there), and judging by the archaeology book resting on his lap, Aradia had come and gone.

He had heard her from outside, and as such had bookmarked the page and set it down. One did not simply read when Vriska Serket was in the room.

"How's my favourite pitiful cripple doing today?" she asked as a greeting. "Actually, no. Maybe you shouldn't answer."

"Hey, Vriska." Understandably, he sounded all measures of bleak, and while he never sounded _bouncy_, per se, his voice lacked the positive factor it had held most of the time before. "Since I'm not, uh, allowed to answer, then, maybe how are you, uhh, then?"

That was fine, a casual opening before unleashing the shit-storm upon him. It would have been more than a little inconsiderate to drop 'hey I'm being stalked by ghosts' on a guy who had just gotten his legs removed, without even a _little_ opening small talk. Not that Vriska really cared about being considerate or anything, but bluh.

"Well, since you asked, other than a few bruises from brobot, I'm doing fabulous as always," He nodded at her words, and it was clear that he wanted to hear of her day. Evidently, his had been incredibly boring. '_As it would be without me, of course_.' For a while, she simply told him how _amaaaaaaaazing_ her day had been, as he listened with a rapt expression. And that was… nice. Most of the time when she spoke to people, they ignored her, or listened only because they were scared of her (fair enough really) or just called her a bitch and left her alone. "I may have something to tell you…"

An increased murmuring sounded from the ghosts. Shit. They could tell something was up.

"Uhh… sure?"

"But, there's one condition, Toreadork. You can't tell anyone, okay? Like, actually no one. No muttering into your pillow, or crying it our in your sleep, or even to your 'bestest bro'. Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am." Tavros confirmed with a fairly nervous grin. If Vriska was swearing him to secrecy about what she was about to tell him then, damn, what on earth could it be? What would _she_ feel so afraid, or frightened of, that she would feel the need to be so secretive over?

And she was serious when she meant she did not want anyone else to hear what she had to say. Even Terezi would probably have laughed if Vriska told her. So, fully aware of the orange flush slowly travelling across the boys face and neck, she leant in close to his ear and began to whisper. To even get so close to his face meant that she had shoved him aside on the bed so she could sit beside him, legs resting atop the covers and crossed in a manner that was most likely offending him at least a _little_. '_Well it's not like I haven't caught him staring at my legs before. So really… stretching them out on the bed isn't going to make him sad_…'

"Do you, uhh, really need to be that, close?"

"Oh please, as if you're not enjoying every moment of my company." she smirked. "Just can it for a bit longer and listen."

Her voice dropped in volume until it became little more than a whisper, with her mouth right next to his ear, and a distinctly scared tone to her words.

"So you know I can make people do shit they don't want to do? Well… I think Aradia can do something similar."

"Aradia?" His voice was obnoxiously loud, and she batted him in the forehead for it.

"I said shush!" Vriska hissed, then leant in again. "I don't know how she did it, or why… well maybe I know _why_, but she's made… I don't know, these fucking _ghost_ things follow me around and… and…"

"Vriska, you, uhh… are you sure?"

"No one's going to believe you, honey," a ghost laughed. "You're stuck with us."

"And now he thinks you're insane!" another chortled from somewhere to the far right of her.

"Of course I'm fucking sure!" Oops, she had yelled that. Then back to a more sensible whisper, she continued, "Would I lie about something like this?"

The silence that came from him said all that she needed to know. Frustrated to the point that she could feel the prickling of tears, Vriska leapt to her feet and headed towards the door.

"Wait!" Her hand paused on the door handle. "I believe you."

Instantly a ghost was onto her with, "He's only saying it out of pity, don't buy this bullshit."

"Oh really?" she said to the boy, relaying the ghosts scepticism with sarcasm clogging her words.

"Just, uhh, come back over here."

And she did. Wedging herself between Tavros's bony shoulder and the bedside table, she put on a suitably unconvinced face and listened to his words.

"Well, I mean, uhh, if Sollux can shoot lasers from his eyes, and you can, uh, use mind-control powers then… Aradia making ghosts, haunt you, that is, uhh, isn't really that crazy an idea."

"Damn right it isn't," she said. "Maaaaaaaan, I'm glad I got that off my chest."

"Isn't there, uh, anything you can do?"

"I've bugged Aradia about it loads, but she hasn't a fucking clue how to get rid of them." Although she was pleased to note that their voices appeared to quieten. It seemed that talking about your problems really _did_ help.

"Why did she do it, anyway?"

"Oh, uh… it's not important." Vriska was almost a hundred percent certain that had she been typing, a few extra eights would have snuck into her writing.

"If it was nothing, then you, uhh, would just tell me." he smirked; an action that looked funny on Tavros's usually benign face.

"I'm serious."

"So, am I." For a few seconds she stared him right in the eye with a smirk of her own, and to her surprise, Tavros held her gaze.

"Fine. She was asking why you'd gotten ill, like, ages ago. And I suggested that _maybe_ I had something to do with it, and she didn't really appreciate that."

"How, uhh, was it your faul-" But then, never mind, because he remembered. Speaking of which, the sides of his horns were kind of brushing against Vriska's hair, and it felt really odd… "So, uhh, your horns are growing, pretty… nice?"

"Damn right they are. Although they're nothing compared to yours." she grinned as she ran a finger along the length of his closest horn, fully aware of the consequences as her nails caught a little on each ridge. His face was the picture of embarrassment with his face deeply flushed, and the tips of his pointed teeth visible as he bit his lip furiously to prevent himself from making a noise. Damn, but it was cute. "So, anything else on your mind, Toreadork?"

"Just wondering, uhh, if you have any more, tricks up your sleeve. Regarding legs, that is."

The fingers stroking his horn stopped as she withdrew her hand.

"I already gave up my fucking eye to give you a few stem cells. What do think it's going to take this time?" A snarl entered her voice that quickly killed the teasing vibes.

"It's just, uhh, I heard that the sweaty guy, Equius, is really, uh, good at robotics and stuff. I mean, he could possibly make you an arm and, well, maybe get me some legs?"

"Oh. I see where you're going with this," A smile stretched across her face as she thought up various ploys to get Equius and his expertise… a smile that soon fell when she realised that was probably already the Condesce's plan. Oh well, it was worth a shot anyway, and so she made a mental note to ask Equius about the robotics next dinner time. If she asked over a chat program, there would be a very high chance that the Condesce would eavesdrop. "Well, I'll see what I can do, hotrod."

"Thanks… I just, uhh, I really want my legs back. I mean, I'd just, uhh, gotten used to having them, again. And… it's nice being able to walk." A strange, slightly constricted tone entered his voice, and Vriska knew full well what it meant. She had seen such situations enough times; Tavros was trying his very hardest not to cry. With his eyes screwed tightly shut in an attempt to hold back the tears, he muttered, "Fuck, ugh, stop it, idiot."

Oh god, what were you even supposed to do in such a situation? If there was one thing Vriska could not stand, it was seeing people cry. Although most of the time when her antics got to such points, the victim was soon knocked out. She hated, hated, _hated_ it! Crying was for weak little babies, and she had no space for it. But obviously, knocking him out was not an option. Seeing the shakes that ran through his body began to panic her.

"Stop crying you baby!" she tried, which yielded less than satisfactory results. What were you supposed to do? What did normal people do? The best she could come up with at the time was to tell him to stop. "I mean it! Ugh, you're pathetic!"

"I'm, sorry. I can't stop. It's stupid," Streaks of orange tinted tears began to run down his face, to both of their horrors. "I, uhh, can't-"

Quickly shifting her position, Vriska turned and grabbed the boy, hugging him closely. Then, with her fingers smoothing over the back-most tufts of his hair, whispered, "It's okay! Jesus! I'll get your stupid legs back. So stop crying already."

Occasionally, when their mother was out doing 'business', and a particularly violent thunderstorm would crash and echo around the house, Vriska's sister would sneak into her bed for comfort. And as a decent sister (it happened now and again), Vriska would sooth the girl's frazzled nerves until she fell asleep, or the storm passed. It was a side she rarely showed, and the blue-blood certainly was not sure as to why she had allowed Tavros of all people to see it, but… it wasn't as if they hadn't slept in the same bed before, right?

Still stroking his hair, she let him sob out all his frustrations onto the crook of her neck. A process that took him a good three minutes, which initially irritated Vriska, because she could be doing so many other useful things right now! Although really, though she would deny it fervently, it was nice being close to someone again. He _was_ very warm, which was always a plus…

Anyway, he seemed a lot calmer now. His breathing had slowed once more, the hitching to his breaths gone, and the tears that had been wetting her hair stopped altogether. Although his breathing pattern was still a little irregular, so she allowed herself a little while longer hugging him.

A problem then presented itself when they broke off the hug, awkwardness written across both of their faces. How was one supposed to continue with conversation after such an event?

Such a situation was not helped at all by how their horns locked, somehow, in the process of moving back from each other: the tip of Vriska's getting hooked onto the narrower edge of Tavros's. A sensation that curled like flames in her stomach was felt, and it made their lips crash together before they even realised what was happening, despite Vriska's many declarations of 'not expecting sloppy make outs' from her. It would make things even more awkward later on, but to hell with that, the here and now was pretty enjoyable.

Kissing at such an odd angle was near impossible, however, and so it was probably just as well that such activities broke the connection she held on his medic, causing her to storm in with the words, "I _thought_ I told you no additional stress."

"Does he look stressed to you?" Vriska grinned, slightly flushed, but left nonetheless. "See you later, Toreadumbass."

"Hormones." the olive-blood sighed, before checking the amputated end of his legs once more.

* * *

><p><strong>== Oh, okay then. Let's be the princess<strong>

You are now Feferi Peixes

Thinking had been something she had been doing a lot of recently. And, okay, she knew that it was stupid to get so worked up over something as stupid as who Eridan was attracted to, but in such weird times, well… it was kind of nice to think about silly things. Like feelings and stuff.

What if there was a thing between Eridan and Vriska? Because, hey, Vriska was one crazy bitch, and while Feferi could not say that she particularly enjoyed her company, maybe… maybe that's what Eridan needed? A massive bitch to offset his massive ego. Whatever. By the looks he was giving her, he clearly felt _something_, and so Feferi was going to be a good friend and respect this.

She had actively made this second decision to drop interest in Eridan at around three in the morning, a couple of hours after she had awoken in hospital from a bad concussion. And oddly, rather than feeling upset by this decision, she felt… freed. Now she did not have these strange feelings for Eridan polluting her mind all the time, things would go back to the simpler days from before. Perfect!

Of course, the sudden destruction of a crush was painful, and a lot of her bounce was sucked from her step, but it would be better in the long run, Feferi reminded herself. Much better.

Eridan, of course, did not seem to notice either way, with most of the battle forgotten to him, including the kiss.

Anyway, Sollux was being a total sweetie about the fight, and came to her the first moment he saw her outside the hospital room to apologise. He did not know what he had done to her, and felt as if he needed to assure himself that it was nothing too horrific.

"Tho wait, your aunt ith manipulating all the leaderth, and they don't even realithe it?"

"Yep." It was refreshing to speak of such things to someone who did not sneer upon all those below his caste. That probably had a lot to do with the fact that the person she was speaking to was a yellow-blood, however. Eridan would probably have said something about how it was her aunts duty to oppress the people. "Well, I think they do realise. But they accept it, and I've haddock up to here with that!"

"You're probably the firtht high-blood that'th ever thaid that."

"What, seriously?"

"Yeah. Motht don't give a thit, ath long ath they get to keep their pothition."

"Ugh!" Feferi fumed. "I don't understand what everyone's problem is! If all this carp about us being 'destined to rule over others' even is true, then it should be our porpoise to ac-shell-y bother taking care of those at the bottom of the hemospectrum."

"Exactly! If you're going to claim it'th your duty to be a high-blood and rule, then they thould at leatht bother to do it properly."

"You know, if I haddock become a mutant, and instead became empress, the first fin I would have done would be to abolish the castes."

"I know. You go on about it enough." Sollux teased, lightly elbowing her in the ribs.

With a smile, she elbowed him back, with, "I don't even! Anyway, I was ac-shell-y going to ask you somefin. Do you think we could spar again, sometime?"

"What, you want thome 'private lethonth'?"

"You know very well I didn't mean it like that, mister! Stop being so glubbing awful!"

"I know. Are we even able to do that, though?"

"I don't know. I could probably pull a few strings-"

"Right after a thpeech on hemo-equality, you thay you'll 'pull a few thtringth'? Hypocrithy ith a terrible thing, Mth Peixeth." Sollux slowly shook his head in mock disgust. "Uthing your blood-cathte ath influence."

"Glubbing hell, you know what I meant!" she laughed, and wow, it was a nice feeling, especially when she realised that the geek had joined in with her.

* * *

><p><strong>== Time skip a few days to the decision<strong>

Often, one member from the mutant groups would finish their particular training routines before the rest of their team, resulting in them heading off early. On that particular day, three nights after Vriska's conversation with the Condesce, Kanaya walked into the dining room to find a bored looking cat-girl, and surprisingly enough, a moping spider-bitch.

The blue-blood's eyebrows were drawn tightly together, her face resting on the metal of the table and partially hidden behind her folded arms. Either she was thinking deeply about something, or brooding for the hell of it.

"Are you okay?" Kanaya inquired, hesitantly placing a hand on the shoulder of the wild-haired teen. Vriska flinched visibly, and shifted from her touch so much that she almost gouged the Russian with her horns.

"I'm fine," she replied gruffly. "Just thinking."

"Of course you are."

The jade-blood took her usual place at the opposite end of the bench and watched as Aradia drifted in, looking fairly vacant… as she had been after the battles. Despite the blank look, the Parisian soon engaged Nepeta in a conversation on the durability of the practice dummies in their training room, and how Equius spent ages in the shower.

Noticing how Vriska's eyes remained fixed upon Aradia's form, Kanaya tried to figure out what was on the girl's mind. A task that still proved to be difficult, despite how Kanaya was usually fairly adept at reading people.

"If there is anything you should wish to talk about, I am here for you, you know." Kanaya reminded. At this, Vriska slouched once more, resting her chin on the table and hid the lower-half of her face.

Her voice was understandably a little muffled when she asked quietly, "If you had to do something wrong to do something right… does that make it wrong or right?"

"I'm afraid I don't follow. Like Robin Hood, stealing to give to the poor?"

"He was stealing from rich assholes. Well I think that's how it went. So no. As in, I don't know, let's say murdering an innocent person to save another person's life."

"Ah… why, may I ask?"

"Just Sollux being a dick and giving me these weird questions to think over." Vriska mentally congratulated herself on the save.

"Well, if we look at it from a purely methodical point of view, how many people would benefit, and how many would experience a loss? And, well, you should then weigh in how much those who gain, benefit, and then how much those who lose stand to lose."

The frown on Vriska's forehead deepened until it even rivalled that of Karkat's.

'_If I kill Aradia, the I kill Equius and Nepeta along with her. From this I would receive an arm, and Tavros, his legs. So by Kanaya's suggestion, it would not be worth it… I need to ask the Condesce if the rest of her group would die with her_.'

Vriska stood suddenly and headed towards the door.

The guards stationed there looked down at her as she demanded, "I need to see the Condesce."

With a shared amused look, the guards then prodded her in the shoulder with the tip of an inactivated cattle-prod. "Get back to your table."

"No. I need to see her!"

"Even we haven't seen her. You really think we're going to be able to take you to see someone who isolates herself from her own employees?"

"Lame. Just because you're not important enough. Ugh, well let me go to my training room then."

"Why?

"I need to see my fucking trainer."

Sure enough, one of them finally summoned an errand-boy to guide her there. Upon opening the doors, she was welcomed to the sight of a sweaty Sollux still practicing certain combat moves over and over with the Handmaid.

"… that's much better, kid. Again. This time, remember to keep your knees bent more. Your balance is shit," the Handmaid instructed, before turning to where Vriska was stood. "Your middle training session ended 'bout quarter of an hour ago. What're you doing back?"

"I need to talk to the Condesce."

"Well tough. You can't." the woman replied.

"Why not?"

"She's out of the country, bearcat. Tough luck."

"But I need to ask her something."

"Sollux, we're done here. Go clean up and head to dinner." The Handmaid dismissed the boy and once his ears were out of range, turned back to Vriska.

"Oh? You're on first name terms with _him_?"

"Depends. Occasionally, when he bothers listening to me, he's half decent," she shrugged. "What did you want to talk to witch about? I already know about who she's asked you to bump off, so don't get your panties in a twist about that."

"I just wanted to know… if I kill her, does the rest of her team also die? Because that's what should happen, right?"

"In most cases, yes," the mentor nodded, heading back to the centre of the room with a joss-stick in one hand, and a lighter in the other. In one fluid motion, she sat down then lit the incense, sticking it into a holder she had produced from her pocket. "But She's deactivated the nanos in them. She's pretty confident that you're going to agree to go along with it. Come here, girl. Sit on the other side of the incense."

"I don't want to get high off your hippie bullshit."

A smirk twitched on the woman's face. "Blunt little shit, aren't you? I'm not trying to get you high, I just want to talk."

"… fine." Vriska sat down heavily. A stupid idea when the floor is concrete. "Fuck, ow."

"The last time we spoke, I discouraged you from- can't you amble any faster, lasers?" Her gaze was stern, and she effectively glared Sollux out of the room for walking slowly. To be fair, he had only just left the bathroom, but the Handmaid did not want him to intercept their conversation. It would have negative effects on them all. "Now. Last time I was discouraging you from whatever she suggested. But I am now able to see that all in all, it turns out okay for all parties… in the end."

"How did you figure that out? And how is death an okay ending for Aradia?"

"Mind your potatoes," she was quick to reply, earning a snort of amusement from Vriska. "Do you know how you're gonna kill her yet?"

"Give me a break. I just decided to do this-"

"Then you're going to die," the Handmaid put it simply. "If you do not compose a plan beforehand, then Aradia will beat you. Your powers have no effect on her, so you won't be able to use them."

"Fuck."

"No, that is not a good plan… unless your love-making is particularly violent." the woman smirked.

"You know that's not even what I meant!"

"Course I do; I'm just messing with you. Now then…"

They spent the remainder of the allotted dinner time discussing how she was going to take out Aradia. It was an… unnerving conversation at best, and Vriska found herself wanting to leave the room several times. The incense helped to keep her calm, however. Perhaps that was why the Handmaid was often found burning it; she needed to remain level-headed after regularly committing atrocious acts? Okay, Vriska was probably thinking too much about it.

The evening training session involved them practicing the main component of their plan. The blue-blood would go about regular training, aka, fighting the brobot with one of the swords, then suddenly attempt to wrench control of Sollux's mind and use his eye lasers to destroy the attacking robot. Sollux had been warned, of course, but the reasons given for this were different to that of the actual intentions behind it.

Interestingly enough, she could only control him around half of the time. Damn. Vriska would be needing all of the luck tomorrow.

And tomorrow, irritatingly enough, came oh so quickly for Vriska, and before she knew it, she was pulling on her boots the next morning and heading towards the dining hall.

It was time to kill Aradia Megido.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** (Sorry for the cliffhanger! And thanks to peeps who correct my spelling! I'll get to it tomorrow morning)

And AAH so now and again I see people talking about this on tumblr, just out of the blue, and so I break out the flappy hands and wander around the house like 'omg people like this aaaah!' Thank you everyone! :D

A fair dash of OOC in the first part, as Tavros probably wouldn't break down like that, and Vriska almost certainly would not comfort him but… I felt we need more fluff? Sorry for that! After this they should be more in character again ^^

As always, thank you for reading! ^^


	19. Arrivederci Megido

Breakfast was served to the mutants in the usual fashion. Once they were seated, servants entered, each holding a tray of bland porridge or jugs of milk and water. There was no use in starting the fight then, so Vriska remained silent, staring at the false wood grain on the table. Kanaya asked her if she was feeling okay, but the question was shrugged off soundlessly.

It was only once the mutants and a few of the guards remained in the room that the blue-blood raised her fingers to her temples and concentrated on ordering the guards not to intervene. To the casual observer, it would simply look as if the girl was muttering gibberish under her breath, perhaps as the result of a headache. The reality was, obviously, far more sinister. Once they were dealt with, Vriska stood, sliding a mask of cocky confidence over her expressions, to hide the nerves and downright terror at what she was about to do. But despite this, her hands still shook as she clenched and unclenched them on her way over to where Aradia was sat.

A confused look sat on Nepeta's face as she looked up, which led to Aradia turning. Behind stood Vriska.

"Hello, Vriska. What do you want?" she asked, sounding fairly bored.

"Oh... I just thought you should know something," Vriska replied, with the innocent tone to her voice contrasting against the clearly malicious look her face carried.

"Know what? That you've been having secret sloppy make outs with Nitram?" Terezi grinned at her. "Everyone already knows, sorry to ruin the big reveal."

"Fucking delusional as usual, Pyrope," Vriska sighed. "He wishes he could get as much of a glance in his direction from me. Although what I'm about to tell you _is_ related to him, would you believe it."

On their fatal online role play sessions, while Aradia had never been motherly to Tavros, she had certainly taken him under her wing, as it were, and looked out for him. Their friendship was strong, especially since they had found one another in real life, and so Vriska had decided to use this alliance and turn it to her favor.

"Did you know that I recently got him stem cell therapy for his back, allowing him to walk again, only to have some meddler get in the way and _chop them off_?"

"Quoi? Euh, what are you... I already knew his legs have been, er, removed. I visited him recently."

Terezi's eyes narrowed in suspicion: not that it could be seen from behind the glasses. "What are you are you trying to pull?"

"Assuming that I'm always scheming and up to something. Classic Terezi. You're being very predictable today!" the blue-blood cackled, before turning back to Aradia. "Well... Anything to say to that? Anything... ooh, slightly... wrong?"

"Wait... you said you got him stem cell therapy? Why would he need that?" And then, the pieces clicked together. Tavros had not been in a wheelchair because he was tired, but because he had been... paralyzed? Well, it certainly made more sense, and Aradia had been suspecting as such. But then, wait, judging by Vriska's clearly taunting grin, she must have had something to do with it!

"Are you saying that you paralyzed him?" The Parisian's once friendly voice had turned icy cold as she looked up at the Brit. Both vaguely took in the other mutants trying to dissuade them from the imminent fight, but they were so focused on the other's actions and words that they blocked the noise out.

"Perhap-" Yet her sentence went no further, as suddenly the ghosts around her, the very same ghosts that had quieted down after she had spoken about them to Tavros, suddenly increased in volume tenfold. It was currently taking all she had to not fall to the ground weeping, but she was going to need to do a lot more than simply stay standing to beat Aradia.

"What did you do to him?" she demanded as she rose to her feet looking for all intents and purposes like an enraged goddess out for revenge. "And I don't care that you got him his legs back again. You clearly feel no remorse!"

With a quick sweep of her arm, the dice hidden in Vriska's sleeve were cast.

13425411... So 11123445.

"I pushed him out of a window, back in the village because he was being slow. But Tavros, being the lame little shit he is, fell on his back. So bye-bye legs."

Luck was apparently out to get her as well, and Vriska found herself questioning her decision in attacking Aradia today. She really should have waited for a day where her luck would be high, goddamn it! But too late now.

At the dice's command, a strange pig like creature materialized before her, which made short work of wandering towards Aradia and commenced chewing at a part of her boot.

"Je comprends pas... are you mocking me?"

With a sigh that sounded more like a snarl, Vriska gathered the dice and threw them again... lousy goddamn stupid luck.

73816456, translating to 13456678.

An orb of energy began to form in the air, crackling slightly until it became the size of a football, then dispersed in a pulsating wave towards its target: Aradia. But irritatingly enough, she dodged it with ease, so with a snarl, Vriska cast again.

61836152… 11234668.

A bolt of lightning shot down from an area just above the girl's head, yet again, she leapt backwards, avoiding the worst of the attack.

"Make the ghosts shut the fuck up already!" the spider-bitch cried as she dashed forwards with the full intention to punch the maroon-blood in the jaw. As Aradia had been expecting another psychic attack, she was unprepared and so Vriska's fist clipped her cheek, shortly followed by the other, which knocked her to the ground.

"This isn't only about the ghosts, is it?" she commented, resulting in said ghosts cackling. "Or about how you did something to Tavros."

"She's brighter than she looks." a ghost said, sounding surprised.

The Handmaid had clearly said that Vriska would not be able to beat Aradia at their current strengths, but she was honestly not expecting their fight to go this terribly.

The plan!

Then, as if luck was finally starting to take a shine on Vriska once more, Sollux got to his feet and grabbed the blue-blood by the arms.

"That'th enough." His tone was final, and his grip tight around the top of her arms… not that she was really trying to escape.

This was merely another stage of her plan… which quickly clicked in Sollux's mind as well, making his eyes widen behind the glasses as he realized what she was about to make him do.

Taking him only partially by surprise, she managed to wrench her arms free of his grip, fling them to the sides of her head and steal the control of Sollux's actions. Perhaps her earlier bad luck was simply so that this would be the moment where his mind was accessible to her.

How very lucky.

"Arrivederci Megido."

Perhaps a tenth of a second passed, if that, before Vriska dropped to her knees and the optic blasts were released at full force, straight into Aradia and singeing the very tip of one of Vriska's horns.

"_Jethuth fucking Chritht, Vrithka_!" Sollux screamed as he rushed towards what remained of Aradia. Her body was terribly burnt, like the surface of an overcooked joint of meat. A certain smell hung thick in the air, a smell that was disturbingly like pork, but perhaps the worst part was that Aradia was still alive, judging by the quick gasps coming from her blackened chest.

62157348… 12345678.

Guillotine de la marquise.

The head was severed from the body quickly, ending Aradia's suffering.

While concerned and distressed at the loss of a good friend, Nepeta also found herself worrying about her own state of survival, because, weren't the other members of the group supposed to die when one member kicked the bucket? Evidently, it was not the case for their group…

While the mutants rushed around the body, crying out in horror and disgust, screaming at Vriska or silently staring in fear, a strange occurrence began to take place that none could see.

Aradia had always been a strong psychic, even before the mutations began. The development of being able to see people's energies move around them was only a further addition to something she already had. As such, when the head was severed from her body, she felt such an overwhelming wave of anger, and such a strong desire to _live_ so that she could kick that bitches arse, that her life force was caught before it could be reborn elsewhere.

Her soul, as it were, hovered above her burnt corpse, noting the scene below with little care. Though it should have made her sob and weep to see her body destroyed in such a way… oddly, she was okay with it.

And thinking about it… Vriska's murder… she was okay with that as well. Aradia frowned. Something seemed a little off with how little she was caring but… really, it seemed silly to get angry with the girl, when she was clearly only killing her to get something. Perhaps someone's life was on the line, because knowing the Condesce that was entirely possible.

Aradia had met the woman just once to discuss any powers she may have been developing, and honestly, she even preferred Doc Scratch to that creep of a high-blood.

Well, now she had stopped her soul from being moved on… what was there to do now? Already she could feel the control she had over it beginning to lessen, and while she guessed she was okay with not getting her revenge now… she still did not really want to go after having cheated death for just a while longer. There had to be a way to stay as herself… perhaps if she were to temporarily take refuge in another's body?

But then… what if she pushed out their soul in the process? Whatever, she was okay with that. Besides, she had a feeling that such an occurrence would not happen. So if both energies would reside in the same body, then she would need someone strong… someone who could take two sets of energies living inside them.

Equius would not find out that Aradia had essentially hidden her soul inside him until he climbed into his sleeping pod, and was greeted with a voice chiming inside his skull, '_Apologies for the inconvenience, but I will be taking refuge inside your physical form until I can find another suitable host_.'

She learned many new curse words that night, both regional Scottish ones, and English.

* * *

><p><strong>== Be the Handmaid<strong>

You are now the Handmaid, on your way to Doc Scratch

When the errand boy arrived at her side, she knew immediately who had sent for her. Doc Scratch had his own set of errand boys, which he sent out to do his dirty work. The Handmaid herself could probably be included in this group. And this group were all female, from ages eighteen to twenty-five, with matching green and white suits. Strange man. He had not changed a bit.

When she arrived at his office, he was resting his head in his hands, but looked up as she entered.

"Ah, hello, my dear," he smiled and sat up straight. "Have you been informed of the bad news?"

"If it is what I think you are referring to, then yes, I have."

"Such a sad occurrence," the man sighed. "I cannot even begin to imagine why Ms Serket would so suddenly murder like that… it does not add up."

"Oh come on, Doc. It's obvious! _She_ made her do it do get something that She wanted." The Handmaid was blunt, but it had to be said.

"How can you be so casual about this?"

"Because everything turns out to be the cat's whiskers. Trust me."

With another heavy sigh, Doc Scratch moved the white orb from his desk, and placed it on top of a filing cabinet behind him. It was this device which prevented Mindfang and her descendants from asserting control over him. Although predictably, it was awkward and unwieldy to use, so there had been no more made of it.

As of late, the Doc's age had been showing. His hair had already been a light blond, but the Handmaid could see a few grey-white streaks beginning to form. And… before, those lines around his mouth, and the creases at the corner of his eyes vanished when he wasn't smiling.

"Aradia was your descendant."

"I was going to comment on how it is unlikely that I was even be alive to see her, but… never mind."

"Have you actually done any research into her family history? It could key you into certain factors of your future, given that you have not had her great-grandmother yet… or whichever relation to her it will be."

"Ugh, spoilers. I haven't the time to be fussing about which man I do the dirty with."

"You say that now, however Ms Megido was the only one of the descendants to have a skill set different to that of her ancestor. Which means only one thing."

"And what would that be, Doc?" she replied, one eyebrow raised well above the other as she prepared herself for whatever bullshit the man was about to bring up.

"It would mean that at some point along the line, another Alternian has had a hand in her genetics."

"Are you sure?"

"Almost certainly. Mutations only account for so much of the changes in skill sets. In fact, the percentage chance that it would be due to that are so minimal, they are hardly worth taking into account," A devilish grin then spread across his pale face. "What I am suggesting, is that you will, at some point in your future, 'do the dirty' with-"

"If that's all you called me here for, then I'm leaving, Doc," she said, with a small grin to match his. "I don't wanna have to endure more of your matchmaking bull. You remember that kid back in the twenties?"

"Oh really, my dear, you cannot hold every decision I make to that _one_ poor choice in suitor."

"I can, I have and I will. Now, I have important business to be gettin' on with."

"Wait. One final thing. Have you any idea on when the next time skip will be?"

The Handmaid frowned, "My times were fairly vague this time around. It should be in two days time, but I did not give myself the time of when it will happen."

"Very well. I shall begin to make preparations shortly."

"Thanks, Doc." She then left the room.

Currently, she had a cranium filled with headaches, a group filled with pea-brains and a schedule crammed with calming down Vriska.

* * *

><p><strong>== Two months later?<strong>

Two months have passed, and you are now Equius Zahhak

There.

The set of legs and the arm were now finished, all three gleaming and glinting silver in the bright light. They appeared to be like an incomplete set of armour when placed together, almost as if Equius had simply stolen the legs and an arm from one of the ancient suits of armour in his manor.

Although while Equius was more than adept at creating robotics, he was not so good at operating on people, so with a document of instructions for the robot's operator, he was done. Yet he still stayed to watch the operation, just to make sure that nothing went wrong… but what he had not fully realized is that Vriska would have to be topless for the procedure to carry through.

It was just the human body, right? Besides, it was not as if she had anything up there anyway. Her chest was quite literally as flat as a pancake. In fact, she was even more flat-chested than him without those pectorals of his. But it still felt exceptionally lewd, disgusting behavior for a blue-blood, and so he asked if there was any way to cover her. Eventually, a strip of gauze was secured over the offending area.

With a gentle hum filling the room, the robot switched on. The machinery was simply a set of four arm-like pieces of metal, the tools at the end of these able to change from a variety of different knives and such.

The arm itself was slightly too big for Vriska to compensate for the growth that she would soon experience. He had not fussed too much on making it look human, except in shape. It was made of a light coloured metal, with two large plates covering the top and bottoms of her arm to hide and protect the wiring and artificial muscles. Something he _had_ decided to experiment with, however, were the joints for her wrist and elbow. Unlike with a normal arm, he had designed them to be ball and socket joints, with the wires feeding through the joint. The increased amount of movement derived from this would please Vriska, he decided.

But what he had not taken into account was how much of her original arm remained. His design was made to begin at the shoulder, and so the remaining section of her arm was removed, and the real operation began.

Attaching the new arm to her shoulder was relatively simple for the robot, and this section was not the part that Equius was particularly worried about; that was the next part of the procedure.

Once the robotics were secured to her body, the wires that would allow sensation to be felt needed to be inserted. For this, the sheet of pectoral muscles on the left hand side of her body were peeled up from the ribcage, and a series of small artificial nerve fibers were placed down.

Well… it seemed that everything had gone correctly, and Tavros's operation passed in a similarly successful manner.

Good. Such was the level of quality that one should expect from a highblood. Creating sensation in the limbs had been an extra amount of hard work, but Equius threw himself whole-heartedly into it. Like Vriska, focusing the mind on something else helped quiet the voices in his mind, or rather, the _voice_.

He was still wary of Vriska, as anyone would be after watching them manipulate someone in killing a girl. But from what he could gather from Aradia's musings and the Condesce, Vriska had been told to kill the low-blood in return for robotic appendages.

'_The second round of battles should be pretty soon_,' Aradia mused, a voice only heard by herself and Equius. '_I wonder if they'll have grown accustomed to their limbs by then_.'

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for the majority of the time, she could not hear his thoughts, so if he wished to reply to her messages he had to speak aloud or write his messages down. Needless to say he hoped that she would find a new host body as soon as possible.

* * *

><p>The second round of battles have now begun. The mutants have been separated into pairs and placed in three different battle bubbles. Would you like to follow the first, second or third battling pair?<p>

**== Uh… the third. Three is a magic number, right?**

You are now following the battle of Gamzee Makara versus Tavros Nitram

The blare of a klaxon sounded, which meant for the two fighters to rush towards each other, perhaps with their weapons in hand in a bid to knockout the other as soon as possible. But this did not happen with the two fighters just mentioned. Unlike with the previous round, the mutants were not told previously who they would be up against, so when these two saw whom they were up against, neither looked particularly thrilled.

"Hey, Tavbro."

"Uhh, hey." The lance in his hand felt all the heavier as he gave nervous glances around the dome. Given what had happened in the last round, where the purple fog had filled the room and made Kanaya chainsaw his legs off, the boy was understandably a little nervous.

Why was it that whenever he got the use of his legs back, a sense of foreboding filled him? Evidently, some cruel god was messing with him.

"Hey, Gamzee?"

"Yeah?"

"If, uhh, that purple gas that makes you, uh, get really, violent come in… I'm sorry in, uhh, advance for anything I might, do."

"Right fuckin' back at you, bro." Just thinking about that purple stuff made his neck sore. While Aradia's death had been horrifically traumatic for all to see it… part of him was a little relieved that she was gone after what she had done to him. And he knew from a reliable source that her mind had not been subject to the rage created by the fog, so she could not exactly use that as an excuse for her violence.

Ugh, gnawing through someone's neck! That was downright nasty.

"This is an announcement from the head of this institute. With great regret, it seems that you have all forgotten the purpose of the klaxon. Here, let me assist you all. It means that you are supposed to begin the fighting.

'Now, I would _hate_ for it to come to the tyrian mist just to get you aggressive enough to fight, as we all know how terribly that turned out last time for some of you. But, if you do not, ah, get your act together, as I believe it is said, then my hand will be forced. May the best group win."

There was nothing encouraging in her words, yet they had exactly the desired effect that the woman speaking them wanted. Almost immediately, Gamzee began to spin the pair of clubs he held around in his hand.

"Sorry, my motherfuckin' brother. But if we get our motherfuckin' fighting on while we're still ourselves, we won't have to fuckin' worry about getting all up and nasty with that mist."

If he could just hit the boy on the side of the head hard enough with one of his clubs, then the battle would be over quickly and Gamzee would not have to worry about hurting Tavros. But, shit, with those sweet new robotic legs, the kid was _fast_, and managed to dodge the lethargic slings of his clubs with hear ease.

Tavros, it seemed, was fed up with being beaten.

"This, uhh, may be a fake battle, and everything, uh, since it's just against you. But that, uhh, doesn't mean I've gottta, or want to, lose." A cheeky grin spread across the boy's face as he hoisted the lance into a more comfortable position on his shoulder.

"Don't let anyone fuckin' tell you to do otherwise, my motherfucker."

"Heh!" Tavros laughed, as he dashed forward with the lance, although honestly, he was not entirely sure as on what to do with it. All you could really do with a lance was, well, stab people. And he certainly did not want to do that.

Perhaps if he could get Gamzee to drop one of the clubs? He could then use that to his advantage. Well, to further the advantage of having robotic legs anyways.

This was almost like a play fight, and both parties involved were so far finding it amusing enough.

While he dodged the increasingly numerous attacks from Gamzee, Tavros tried to discern whether there was a side that the stoner favoured. Just like in the movies, and the stories that Aradia sent him about daring explorers fighting rivals. But it turned out that in the real world, figuring out such a thing in the heat of battle was not really an option for him.

Not paying attention, the Hispanic boy turned to soon, rewarding him with a sharp CRACK against one of his robotic legs, making him gasp at the pain and knocking him to the ground. Oh well, at least he could confidently tell Equius the next time he saw him that the fake nerves worked. Well, probably not _confidently_, per se, because the sweaty blue-blood creeped him out a little.

Without a moment's thought, Tavros grabbed the lance from where it had been dropped no more than a foot away, and angled it _up_, the pointed tip resting lightly against the high-blood's skin. This halted both the clubs that had previously been aimed at Tavros's skull.

"Looks like I, uhh, won, I guess?"

"I guess you up and motherfuckin' did, well done, bro." All of a sudden, the grin stretched across Gamzee's face appeared horrific, crude and mocking, with the hand that reached over to ruffle his hair becoming disgustingly patronizing.

"I don't want to win just because you, uh, let me." Without either of them noticing, a faint purple tint began to stain the air.

"That's fuckin' fine with me," Gamzee chuckled, "_Because I wouldn't feel motherfuckin' chill with letting you win either_!"

Yet because the dosage in these rounds was significantly less than last time, a sense of empathy still stuck to Tavros, and so rather than use the lance to spear him through the jaw, he instead grabbed the clubs from Gamzee, and before the other knew it, smashed him around the head with one.

The Aussie crumpled to the floor, as a voice announced, "Tavros Nitram, first victor."

* * *

><p><strong>==How about… the first battling pair now?<strong>

You are now following the battle of Terezi Pyrope versus Vriska Serket

"Nice cane." Vriska commented as she took in the girl stood before her. Unlike Terezi's last battle, where she had used her cane as a staff, this time round, she had been given something new to try. It was another cane: long, white and topped with a carving of a dragons head, in some material she had never seen, well, felt or sniffed, before. Inside the main body of the cane was a sharp, narrow sword of the same substance, but the teal-blood was hoping she would not have to resort to such means.

Sure, Vriska got _very_ into the role-plays they did together, but it was only on very rare occasions that one of them would actually get hurt. And even then, it was never very serious.

But maybe today was to be the day that the injuries would be serious…

As with the third pair of fighters, the head of facilities message sounded throughout their fighting bubble. Yet neither Vriska or Terezi had been affected by the purple gas, and while they were assuming that they probably would not be impacted by it the second time round, they could not afford to take that chance.

Besides, Terezi was still furious at Vriska for the murder of Aradia; no one knew that she still lived in some form other than Equius. And for obvious reasons.

The gas began to pump into the room, but as before, it had no effect on either of the mutants.

"Come oooooooon, Terezi. One of us has to beat the other sooner or later." Vriska cackled, yet something was slightly… off about her. There were deep bags under her eyes, indicating that she had not slept properly in, well, two months. Perhaps she did have a heart after all. But that did not excuse the fact that she killed the girl in the first place.

With a shriek, Vriska lunged towards Terezi, knife in hand. While the knife was easily avoided, the attack caused by dice cast on the floor was not. Terezi, being blind, could not see the number they cast, she could only smell the blue streaks that passed through the air, before her ears picked up the vibrations in the air as they hit the ground.

Judging by the stifled snort of amusement from the other girl, chances were it was a good attack. She also managed to draw this conclusion from the sudden large amounts of orange flowing on Vriska's knife. Was that… fire? The heat receptors on her face said, yes.

"Still not talking to me?" the Brit pouted, slashing forwards with the now alight knife. How was it not burning her hand? "Lame as usual."

Terezi quickly swung her cane up, blocking Vriska's knife as it aimed towards her chest. For a few seconds, they had a contest of strength, with both members struggling the best they could to push their weapon forwards. The fires on Vriska's blade were her downfall, as the heat generated by them was unbearable on her face, and so with a snarl, she backed off, scooping the dice up in her hands.

Cast!

3842162… 1223468

Wait… there were only seven dice?

"Jokes on you, Serket." Terezi said, holding the other dice up between her thumb and forefinger. Then, in one sweeping motion, she pulled the sword from her cane, leapt behind the girl and sliced at the back of her legs, making Vriska fall to her knees.

"That, was for Tavros," The sword was slid back into the cane, and then, with a firm '_thunk_', Terezi smacked the dragon-headed hilt around the top of her head. Vriska collapsed against the icy concrete flooring. "And that was for Vriska. Justice has been partially dealt."

"Terezi Pyrope! Second victor."

* * *

><p><strong>== Well there's only one pair left, so be them<strong>

You are now following the third and final battle of Karkat Vantas versus Sollux Captor

"Heh, hey, KK," drawled Sollux. "Lookth like you're fighting me. Don't flip your thit or anything."

"Why would I flip my shit about that?" Karkat replied, a scowl drawing his eyebrows tightly together.

"Becauthe you flip your thit about everything." the geek shrugged.

Karkat's scowl grew deeper, "Well will you look at this. Here is my shit, and yet it remains unflipped. It's a miracle. But don't tell Gamzee I used the m-word. Fuck, he can probably sense I used it with his weird religions powers or whatever the fuck would be a better word for that. I'm practically distracting him from the fight, just thinking about fucking miracles, like the embarrassing shit-stain he is."

"Wow, okay, calm the fuck down. Thee, flipping your thit, what did I thay?"

"Fuck."

In the months they had spent in the retainment organization, Sollux had indeed gained far better control of his optic blasts with the help of the Handmaid. She was probably the perfect teacher for him, and could only be improved upon if she, too, had optic blasts. When he was pointlessly moping, she would give him a small amount of support, before telling him firmly to 'get his arse into gear' and 'stop wasting time, we have work to do'.

The knowledge that he had killed Aradia in a way weighed down heavily on his shoulders, meaning that he slunk easily into long bouts of misery. Working on his fighting made this knowledge slink further back in his mind, however. Yet Vriska still had to have her own different times for training, as nearly every mutant wanted to rip into her. While the others slept and ate, she trained with the Condesce, which was exactly as horrifying as it sounded. Without this distraction then, both Tavros and Sollux improved in vast swathes. The robotic legs helped a lot for Tavros as well.

So when Karkat lurched towards him with his sickles firmly in hand, Sollux released a fairly reserved beam from his eyes that did no more than knock the blade from one hand.

"Ah fuck, now you're off balance."

"This isn't a lesson in fucking feng-shui. Did you not get the memo? This is where we beat the respective shit out from each other so much with our sickle kind and whatever-the-fuck-is-coming-out-of-your-eyes kind that one of us keels over with grub-sauce leaking from various orifices, which will be you; and no I won't tag that spoiler."

"Jethuth Chritht, Karkat. Hath your perthonality alwayth been thith bubbly and warm, or are you jutht cruthing on me?" Sollux smirked, sending a barrage of beams at Karkat, which, to the other boy's credit, he dodged very well, or deflected off the reflective surface of his sickle blades.

The battle changed completely when the purple gas filtered into the room, however. While it was a significantly smaller dosage than before, Karkat was still affected, with his pupils shrinking to pinheads instantly. But unlike last time, Sollux was completely unaffected-

"_Thit! Fucking Chritht, KK_!" he shrieked as he leapt aside, only narrowly avoiding the other boy's violent attack. It was as if the boy was possessed, which in a way, he was, as he sliced at Sollux as if his life depended upon it.

Since he himself had been under the influence of the fog last time, all that he knew of people affected by it was from Feferi… and she had been a little reluctant to share her experience, understandably.

It was odd, really, that the smaller dosage was having a larger effect on Karkat. But perhaps that was because less of the air was being taken up with the stimulant, so more of it was breathable? Eh, Sollux didn't really have time to be thinking of such matters.

CLANG!

The metal of the sickles bounced off the glass, creating an earsplitting screech.

CRACK!

The Californian had managed to pin Sollux to the ground, smashing the sickles down towards his face. But right at the last moment, he flung the top half of his body forwards, head butting the kid right in the chest.

BZAM!

Unable to think of another alternative to end the battle quickly, and still win it himself, Sollux pulled off the glasses and shot a concentrated beam of energy right at the possessed boy's upper-half, enough to bruise and hit hard, but not enough to burn.

With the force of the optic blasts, the boy was flung backwards, hitting the glass walls of the bubble with a 'gong', before sliding back down.

Sollux was not to know it, but that was the exact way he had beaten Feferi in the previous round.

"Sollux Captor, final victor. Group Eight ranked first."

* * *

><p>Your name is Terezi Pyrope.<p>

You are pretty enthusiastic about dragons. But you have a PARTICULAR AFFECTION for their COLOURFUL SCALES. Too bad there's no such thing as dragons or you would use them to decorate your home. Your home is located deep in the woods, which makes the school run take a PRETTY LONG TIME, but you wouldn't have it ANY OTHER WAY. Your mum's almost always out, however, so you surround yourself with a variety of plushie pals known as SCALEMATES. Large amounts of LIVE ACTION ROLE PLAYING come from them.

You take an interest in justice, holding particular fascination for ORCHESTRATING THE DEMISE OF THE WICKED. You have taken up study of both BRITISH and INTERNATIONAL law, and surround yourself with legal books. You hope one day to join the honorable ranks of the LEGISLACERATORS along with your mother.

When your skin began to turn GREY, you told your mum IMMEDIATELY, and using her INFLUENCE OVER THE LEGAL SYSTEM she managed to hide you to some extent. Although her deceit to the law STUNK and you handed yourself in.

Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** (I'm a nerd for robotics can you guess?) And sorry if there's anything wildly off. I allowed myself _some_ leeway since this is set in the future, but hopefully nothing's too farfetched.

I'd hoped that I'd get part 2 of this finished before I set off on holiday, but NVM! So basically, there's gonna be a hiatus of a fortnight on this, sorry! Also, in a chapters time, we'll be halfway through this story! I've finally got round to planning it, and if all goes to plan there will be four parts, with one intermission.

Also, massive thanks to all of my reviewers, of course because you're all the best. But also to anon, glubofhearts for your lovely and super long review!

And thank you for reading! ^^


	20. The Psiioniic

Your name is Gamzee Makara.

You get pretty excited by CLOWNS OF A GRIM PERSUASION WHICH MAY NOT BE IN FULL POSSESSION OF THEIR MENTAL FACULTIES. You belong to a RATHER OBSCURE CULT. The beliefs of this cult are SOMEWHAT FROWNED UPON by those dwelling in more common lawnrings. But you don't care, you got to be going with what feels right at where your heart's up in, you know?

You used to like to practice on your ONE WHEEL DEVICE, which you were GOD AWFUL AT because your FEET DID NOT REACH THE PEDALS. You enjoy a FINE BEVERAGE, and like to do A LITTLE BAKING SOMETIMES. You had ALL THESE HORNS all over the place, and sometimes you stood on them and SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF YOURSELF.

You know the drill by now, your skin TURNED GREY. A tourist noticed while you were SWIMMING and thought you'd been BITTEN BY SOME WEIRD CREATURE and subsequently FLIPPED THE MOTHERFUCK OUT. You were quarantined for NEARLY A MONTH before you were sent in. You dad was on a business trip the whole time, and as such still does not know your whereabouts. He has filled a MISSING PERSON notice, yet the authorities will not deliver.

Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.

* * *

><p>arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling adiosToreador<p>

AG: Tavros?

AG: Taaaaaaaavros?

AG: Why is no one replying, jeez

AG: ::::\

adiosToreador is now offline

AG: Oh wow w8 a second, please make that a little less fucking su8tle, I'm not sure what you're trying to say

AG: You know

AG: The only way you could've made it more su8tle was may8e if you'd written

AG: uHH,,,, PLEASE LEAVE ME, ALONE, vRISKA,,,

AG: yOURE,, UHH, TOO PRETTY AND SMART, FOR ME,,

AG: Award to Vriska Serket, for the 8est impression of Tavros Nitram since ever.

AG: Or may8e if you made a powerpoint, with every page having 'fUCK OFF,,' written in 8right red comic sans in the centre of twenty slides.

AG: Size 48

AG: 8old.

AG: 8luh! Fuck this!

AG: I just want to talk to someone! Do you have any idea how fucking 8oring it is having only the condesse or whatever her name is to speak to?

AG: Here's a clue: loads.

AG: Oh gr8

AG: Now I look like one of those losers that carries on speaking to people when they've logged off

AG: Fuck you toreadum8ass

arachnidsGrip [AG] is now offline

* * *

><p>Swing music was the was the main component of that night's entertainment, and several couples danced in the centre of the ballroom to the sound of the singer's smooth voice. The room itself was vast, with stained-glass windows lining the walls, and several vast, crystal chandeliers dangling near precariously above the dancers. A warm, yellow light filled the room thanks to these, and it put the guests at ease, which, really, was quite needed when hosting such an event.<p>

One such couple dancing was the mayor of Phoenix and her husband, alongside the current president of the United States of America and his husband. Indigo and purple-bloods created the bulk of the crowds, although cerulean-bloods, teals and even the odd yellow or maroon-blood threaded their way through the masses. All in all, this was a high-profile party, with important people from around the world attending, and all because of one reason. The onset of another war.

Perhaps such a jovial ball could offset it? Unlikely. But it did not matter, for such a precious collection of VIPs was prime material for… certain individuals.

In a dark area of the room, seated before a delicious meal of pasta was a tall young woman, sitting quite comfortably on the curvy side of skinny with black hair that tumbled in thick waves down her back.

Clad in a green dress with a slit high up one thigh, she commanded the attention of the man beside her entirely, careful not to let the usual cruel expression on her face come out to play. So she softened her features, made the angular slices of her cheekbones, the narrow straight of her nose and the near exotic curvature to her brows appear friendly, human even. The slash of cerulean warped into a smile, one that with much practice, reached her eyes and made the poor man melt.

"I guess it would not be a problem." he concluded, and stood, pulling her chair out for her.

"Merci, monsieur," the woman purred. It was like god had created her for him, she even had that low voiced French accent that he found obscenely attractive. Okay, so she was probably ten years his junior, but she looked over twenty, so it would be fine. "So I take it you must be the owner of this establishment?"

"Ah, no, I simply work here."

"And you are not working tonight?" Her eyes widened with confusion.

"I have a high placed job, being of the caste I am, purple, so I was invited as a guest."

"How delightful for you," she said, careful to keep sarcasm from her tone. So he was the type to boast of his blood-caste… interesting. Although he clearly could not afford the half-decent face-paint that the most illustrious members of this ball could, judging by the smudges of grey on his dark-coloured shirt. "So, where will be start?"

After getting them past the guards 'I work here, she's with me,' he started them up the stairs.

"Anywhere in mind, sweetheart?"

She giggled, then placed a well-timed stumble afterwards, resulting in her grabbing the sleeve of his tuxedo. Her research showed than his type of men were into that kind of stuff. The weak, vulnerable woman that needed to be protected. It disgusted her, but it was necessary to further the deception.

"I'd love to see the conference room, if possible," His expression hardened a little suggesting that maybe that was too off limits for the mere impressing of a woman he wanted to screw. Damn, she would need to taunt him more. "I mean, if you cannot get me in there, that is fine. I'll head back downstairs."

The arm was released from her grip and she sashayed away, careful to swing her hips _just_ right, since apparently she did not have a large-enough chest to use _that_ form of seduction.

"Wait, I should be able to do it." The first true smile of the night, a cruel smirk, tugged on the corners of her mouth, before she turned it sweet once more, and span to face him.

"Thank you, I was so looking forwards to this!"

Running a playful finger up his horn, she felt a small part of herself disappointed at his reaction. Although really, what was she expecting when it was fake?

A code was needed, as they had suspected, but with the man's help she was soon in.

All that was needed for her to do in this room was scrape a line of blue from her nail-varnish onto the wall, releasing the nanobots, which would reproduce and then form the seeing and hearing devices her people desired. But she made sure to spend an extra few minutes in the room so as to not appear suspicious.

Once done with this, they slunk out, the door sealing shut behind them, secure and completely burglar-proof. The woman shrugged, adjusting the white fur boa she had draped over her shoulders and arms. Real fur, apparently. Although she had no idea where the owner had gotten it from, or indeed, how they had afforded it. The owner of the boa and dress was an elusive woman at best.

Now she had the problem of what to do with this man now that she no longer needed him. She could not use her powers on him, as the security tapes would pick it up, and her boss would give her hell. Unless she could use him again to open the next door she needed to enter… certainly it would appear a little less suspicious than picking the lock. And unlike the rest of the guests at this party, this particular woman could not simply remove her horns and grey skin.

"Could you maybe show me one more place, bitte?" she said. Wait, fuck, no. Bitte was German, not French. Ugh, she needed more sleep, but it seemed he had not noticed, so whatever.

Being so desperate to please her, the man took her to this next room.

"Just around the corner- hey, what are you doing here?" her companion cried suddenly at the sight of two young men. "This area is off limits to guests, I suggest you leave before I call security."

The taller of the two snorted, "Yeah, thure. But jutht tho you know, you've got an actual murant right there behind you. I wouldn't turn your back on her."

"Excuse me?"

"How dare you fling such insults about! I have never even met you before in my life!" she cried indignantly, appearing insulted even though this man had hit the nail on the head with his words.

This merited a closer look, and so as subtly as she could, she examined the duo before her. One was ridiculously tall, and the other about her height, horns not included. Both had side-burns, oddly enough, both were easy on the eyes in the looks department, and both had a very real looking yellow whites of their eyes. Odd.

"She couldn't possibly be a mutant. This is a costume party, and if her outfit is good enough to merit being mistaken for an actual mutant, then…" And then the man paused to think. She was being unusually troublesome for the usual blank, air headed women that came here… and her features looked odd, to put it bluntly. There was something just a little too real about her grey skin, and sharp teeth, and long ears and the fucking horns. "You're saying that she is an actual mutant?"

"Thure. Just try pulling her hornth off." shrugged the taller of the two, to which the woman leapt back at, blocking the man's reaching hand.

"I wouldn't, uh, touch those if I were you," the shorter then commented, with his grin spreading wider as if remembering an amusing memory. "They're a pretty sensitive area."

"And didn't I thay don't turn your back on her?" the taller said as the man turned to face him. The employee sneered, yet he did just what he had suggested, turned to look at her, then… next thing he knew he was sitting at a table, eating the plate of pasta that the woman he had been with earlier was picking at… huh?

"Blow my fucking cover why not!" the woman fumed once the keys for the room had been dropped in her hand, and the man was walking away. "I could've been in and out of there easily if it weren't for you shit sacks. And I wouldn't have had to use my power either." She grumbled under her voice for a while longer before turning back to the pair of mutants, the fake French accent having been substituted with her native English. "So who are you?"

"Taurus."

"Gemini."

"Oh, are we using that lame codename bullshit? Then Scorpio."

The Condesce had decided giving her mutant solders codenames to be a seemingly good idea, much to the horror of said soldiers. With the exception of Scorpio, the mutants were trained in batches of twelve, with their codenames linked to the symbols printed on their shirts. According to the Condesce, the only reason she was spending so much time with Scorpio was because she 'owed it to someone'.

Frankly, all Scorpio could think of when she had revealed that, was what someone even had to do to make the Condesce owe them something…

Even though they almost recognized each other, none gave any indication of it. It was easier to complete this challenge without the weight of previous emotions getting in the way; although the lisped gentleman, Gemini, frowned at her words, suggesting a severe dislike of her at best. It seemed that particular feeling had not faded over the years they had been apart, if he was indeed who she suspected he was, though she could be wrong.

But working as a team… that would be useful, she supposed, since ransacking an office for information was much easier when it was three people as opposed to one.

The key she had stolen slotted neatly into the lock, no surprise. Yet after turning it fully, the resulting clicks telling her the bolts had shifted back, the door handle still wouldn't pop out from the faux-wood. There was no use unlocking a door if you could not turn the handle.

"Must have DNA scanning… uhh…" Taurus pulled a face that looked suspiciously like a pout, then with one hand, combed the main body of his quiff back with his fingers. A nervous quirk? Although other than that he was acting confident and sure of himself – almost cocky at times, in fact – and so maybe he was not who she thought him to be. The boy she had known could never have changed so dramatically. "Maybe we should have, kept that guy around?"

"Yeah, maybe we should have. Well done, you finally figure it out. Fucking gold stars all round. Listen, I had everything under control here, so I don't know why fish-face felt the need to send you two in as backup or whatever."

The looks that went round following her words all spoke the same message. They all knew who the others were, yet decided to avoid baggage from the past and would, instead, pretend that they were all complete strangers with this strange woman. It was easier.

"Well… we didn't, uhh, know you'd be here, either."

"We don't have time for all thith. That man ith gonna call thecurity and we'll have failed. The camerath are already all focuthed on uth."

"Fuck," Scorpio spat. "Well they've already got a good look at our faces, so we may as well just break in-"

"No." Gemini's voice was stern. "If they know that we know the information, then it putth them in the pothithion of power."

"Well it's a bit late for that! We've got to get the information or the Condesce will flip her shit! Anyway, we shouldn't even be talking about this here, they'll be able to hear us."

Gemini gave an irritated look at the camera focused on them, then motioned the two of them closer. Barely raising the volume of his voice above 'silent'. Most microphones would not be able to pick such sounds up, nor would regular people, but with how the mutations affected their hearing, Taurus and Scorpio could just about pick up what he was saying.

"How about thith. We pretend that we've done thomething to the camerath, act like now they won't be able to thee what we're doing, and then thteal it."

"Uhh… I don't see why we can't just, uh, steal it."

"Becauthe then, they _don't_ know that we know, that they know, that we know."

"What?"

"Bluh, okay, they are not aware of the fact that we have confirmed our thuthpicionth that they know we have read the information. They don't even know we have thuthpicionth about them, they will be completely obliviouth. Better?" said Gemini, sarcasm lacing his words. "It meanth we'll have an angle on them, even if it'th pretty non-exithtential."

"Oh, uh, okay then."

Gemini then took something from his jacket pocket, an old style USB by the looks of it, and held it against the side of the camera. After a few seconds of this, he got down from his tiptoes and placed the cuboid of metal and plastic back into his pocket.

"That thould have put the camera feedth on a loop, and scrambled the micth." he announced in a normal tone of voice, only slightly hushed in case any guests or staff found their way to where they were working. The boy then crouched before the keyhole, and, shifting the dark glasses he wore up a little, opened just one eye a crack. From this a narrow beam of blue tinted energy shot from his eye and began to work its way through the thick metal of the door.

The heat coming from this was near unbearable as the metal began to melt and run down the door, creating sparks that bounced off Gemini's thick skin near harmlessly.

"Is that a fire retardant tuxedo?" Scorpio frowned in disbelief.

"You mean that'th _not_ a fire retardant dreth?"

"My means of getting into locked rooms doesn't involve using my eyes as a blowtorch, so it was not necessary to wear something weird like that." she chuckled in that low, husky voice of hers.

The locks inside the door were disabled and the door handle popped out for them. They were in.

Once inside this room, however, they were horrified to find that its owner was just as messy as they were, with papers scattered about in unorganized piles on the desk, floor and shelves. And as for the filling cabinets, well, it was good that none of them were particularly what you would call 'neat-freaks'.

"This is going to take decades!" complained Scorpio as she took in the sight before her. "And it looks like someone's already been sent in before us."

"One of uth?" Gemini asked as he broke the camera, and properly this time.

"No idea. While the Condesce does do things like send in multiple mutants, I don't think she'd send in more than three. And if someone's already got the information, then she'd order us out."

"Who ith thith Condethce?" Gemini said, as Vriska had forgotten that it was only her and two of the other mutants that had met her.

"Oh, I meant Doc Scratch."

Taurus paused to think for a moment, before deciding, "We should look anyway."

And so they did.

While Scorpio and Taurus sifted through the masses of paper before them, giving the words on the sheet a quick scan before moving on, Gemini was at the computer, installing some weird program or something of the sort that allowed him to quickly sift through the files.

They searched for a few minutes, before Gemini announced, "Got something."

"Then download it and let's get going. Someone's going to come at any minute." She dumped the pile of papers back down in front of her, then stood and rushed to the door, peering down the corridors.

"Wait, I think I've, uh, found something too."

"Then take a photo and put it back quick."

Gemini suddenly leapt to his feet, sliding the USB into a pouch hanging from his neck, presumably so it was harder to lose.

"Great, let's go."

They quickly left the room, descending the staircase and merging seamlessly with the dancing couples. From there they briefly split to avoid suspicion, before she worked her way to the door, careful to avoid the gaze of the man she had been using. Once outside, she shivered violently. As the night had dragged on, the temperature had dropped significantly, as one would expect in mid-December. She really should have brought a jacket or something; the fur boa was doing little to keep her arms warm, and thanks to the slit in the dress, her legs were freezing.

"Cold?" With that low drawl, it had to be Taurus.

She turned to find the boys behind her, and trying to make sure her teeth didn't chatter too much, replied, "Yeah. Dresses weren't made to be worn in f-fucking December."

"You, uhh, want my jacket or something?" he offered, but was met with a firm shake of her head.

"Don't feel the need to offer that. It's-s my fault for not bringing a coat." she shrugged.

"Uh, are you sure?"

"I'm a big girl, I can deal with my own mistakes," Scorpio smirked, pulling the fur closer around her body. At least she hadn't worn heels. Although at a comfortable six foot two (the mutation had more side effects that she had initially noticed), she had no need for such things. "Are we getting the lift back from the same person or…?"

"If we got different rideth in, then probably not."

"Well then. Taurus, wasn't it?"

"Uh, yes?"

"I'm going to need your photo of the information you found."

"I thought you, uh, dealt with your own mistakes?" smirked Taurus.

"There is a difference between getting a bit cold because you forgot to bring a coat, and getting torn apart for failing the fucking mission."

"Well, uh, I shouldn't… I mean…" Taurus paused for a moment, thinking it through, before relenting and swapping his camera with hers.

"Thank youuuuuuuu!" she crooned, that smirk of hers still etched onto her face, before Scorpio turned and sashayed away. Until, that is…

"Wait, Vriska!"

And with that, the unspoken agreement of pretending they did not know each other, shattered. And Vriska, not wanting to confront Tavros and Sollux, simply ran.

* * *

><p>"Do you think that I'm stupid?" asked the Condesce as she took the photo from Tavros's camera. "I know full well that this isn't your camera. Although kudos, I guess, for stealing it when you had no information."<p>

"Thank you," Vriska muttered. After countless slaps, she had gotten rather more subdued around the woman. Respectful, almost. Besides, mind control did not work on her, much to the blue-blood's dismay. The punishment for his failed attempt had been horrific. "We grouped together, and they both found information with my help. But I then realized we would be split again, so I took Taurus's camera, and swap-"

The tyrian-blood interrupted with, "We?" And this single syllable managed to flood Vriska's body with a sudden surge of worry. What if the two mutants she was with weren't who she thought they were?

"Uh, Gemini and Taurus…?"

With a horrifically long pause, the Condesce then nodded. "Continue."

"Well, I thought that you may be… unimpressed if I appeared without any information."

"You _know_ I would be," the Condesce grinned, her shark-like teeth glinting in the low-light of her office. "The punishment would be very severe. But since you took the initiative to take his information, then it will be him that gets the punishment. I'm sure he knew as-"

"Wai-"

SMACK.

A familiar stinging sensation spread across Vriska's cheek, the light slap being the reminder that she should have stayed silent, according to the Condesce. She had not been slapped in a while, in fact. It seemed the woman was in an abnormally good mood as of late…

So Tavros had known what would happen to him if he swapped his camera with hers? He knew that he would get punished, but took it anyway just to please her? Vriska wasn't certain on how she was supposed to feel about that…

"Oh dear. Did you not realize that? Well, it's too late now," She looked at the photos from the document Tavros had unearthed with a small, satisfied smile, before adding, "You are free to go. The Handmaid is waiting for you outside."

"Well it's a fucking reunion today, isn't it?" Vriska muttered, before dashing out the door.

Waiting in the corridor, as the tyrian-blood had promised, stood the Handmaid, tall as ever. Although with the growth spurt that Vriska had gone through lately, she did not look nearly as looming and daunting as she used to.

"I see you haven't made a mess of my dress, kiddo. Good," She gave a quick glance down at her overalls, a grim look on her face before looking back at the dress she once wore. "Maybe one day I'll find an excuse to wear it again."

The errand boy that was supposed to meet them never came, which was when the Handmaid decided that, really, after eleven years in the retainment organization, she probably knew her way around it by now, so she attempted to lead the way. Their destination was Group Eight's training room.

Most of the other mutants were asleep, with the exception of a strange team of them, consisting of rainbow-drinkers… whatever the hell that was. Was it even a thing? Eridan claimed so, but his rumors were often on the farfetched side of reality, so Vriska always took them with a hefty portion of salt.

"When do you want the dress back?"

"As soon as possible. Although I'd kinda appreciate it if you didn't just strip down in front of me to take it off." replied the older woman with a smirk.

"Well then today's your unlucky day. I wasn't planning to."

"Oh! You save that for Eridan then, do you?" the Handmaid chuckled, while Vriska could do little more than splutter. "Get it to me when we next meet. It shouldn't be too long."

"Fine. But me and Eridan are nothing like that, how many fucking times! We're, uh, kismewhatevers."

"Kismesis?"

"Yes, kismesississ."

"Kismesissitude?"

"Whatever it's called."

"Where you really _really_ hate someone's guts?"

"Yes! Exactly that!"

"Like… a particularly potent arch-rivalship?"

"Yes. A kismesissitude."

"And, of course, you'll know that this is also as much of a sexual relationship as a matespritship, right?"

"Fucks sake."

The Handmaid laughed, amused at how easily she had led Vriska down that path to teasing, before she was interrupted by an errand boy appearing.

"You are needed in the Red Team's sleeping area."

"Listen, Bearcat. You're going to have to go ahead on your own. I'll be along shortly. The training room is pretty close by, you'll be fine."

And Vriska, feeling grown-up and special in her dress, decided that she was _fine_ with this, that _of course_ she knew her way, and that she _didn't even need_ an errand boy, because come on, she was _seventeen now_ and knew her way around this shitbag like the back of her hand.

So in the space of about three minutes, she found herself completely lost, wandering the winding corridors. The architecture reminded her oddly of coral, the way the blank, white walls seemed to branch off in odd patterns. Of course, the fact that it looked like a sea-creature did little to alleviate the fact that she hadn't a clue where she was in the facility.

No one was around, not even errand boys conveying messages and guiding the mutants around. Or medics swapping information on certain patients after a rough mission. Odd.

What was that technique for finding one's way out of a maze again? Something to do with only taking rights… or was it lefts? It probably did not matter either way, so she decided upon only rights.

But before long she found herself in exactly the same place as she was before.

"Great."

Picking a corridor at random, Vriska then walked down it, hoping that at some point she might meet someone. Which she didn't.

As she continued along the path, she noticed a gradual decline in its appearance. While it was still clean, the once white walls had taken on a slightly beige colour to them, there were the beginnings of cracks forming along where the wall and ceiling met, and the light fixtures were starting to show their age. All in all, this section of the retainment organization was a little run down.

Vriska frowned, contemplating what this meant. It was probably that this was the oldest part of T.R.O.L.L… hmm… the Condesce probably would not be too pleased if she found that she was here.

But now she was intrigued, and so she continued down the path, which ended with a door. A disturbingly simple looking door, made of a dark wood with a pin tumbler lock. The handle waited innocently outside the door, which was odd since in their time if the door was locked, the handle remained securely inside the door.

'_Looks like it's from the start of the century_,' she mused. '_Maybe even from before then…_'

With a quick glance around, she reached out and jiggled the handle. Locked. So this was definitely an old door.

Then, after a devious grin, she slid a hair-grip from her locks and began to work on unpicking it. Suddenly those lessons on picking old-style locks from the Handmaid seemed a lot more useful. In fact… it was almost as if she had planned this? But surely she could not know beforehand where the Brit would wander to…

Click! With a final shake of the pin, the door was unlocked.

Slowly, slowly, she twisted the handle and opened the door a crack, peering in. The sight she saw was enough to make her curious, and so she slid inside, clenching the ruined hair-grip in her hand.

The room was dark, large and circular, with a sunken pit in the centre. This was the part of the room that intrigued her. From the ceiling twisted many tendrils of fuchsia, looking almost like tentacles as they tumbled towards the bottom of the pit.

Silently jogging towards this pit, she looked down and gagged. The sight before her made her quickly cover her mouth, hoping that the pasta she had eaten earlier would not make a reappearance. For even Vriska with her strong stomach was disgusted by what lay in the pit.

Suspended several metres off the ground by the tentacles from above, with more coming up from beneath to support the form, was the body of a man – a mutant in fact.

At the sound of the gag, he turned his head and looked up at her, eyes hidden behind a strange pair of goggles. He did not say anything, simply angled his eyes towards where he had heard her.

Vriska remained completely still. He could not see her, but he could still hear her. Maybe if she remained still long enough he would not notice her? A primal fear sat heavy within her at the sight of the man caught up in the tendrils, and as soon as he looked away she decided she would run. But he did not look away.

"Hello?" His voice was low and rough, indicating that he had not spoke to someone in a long time. When she did not reply, he stared at the spot where he had heard the noise for a while longer, before looking down again.

**== Speak to him**

And he looked so bored and miserable, that Vriska indeed blurted, "Who are you?"

The speed at which he looked up was utterly pitiful, and Vriska found herself slowly walking towards a set of stairs that jutted out towards where he was suspended. Yet she did not go down them just yet, she needed to make certain he would not attack her.

"I won't hurt you. Trutht me, you wouldn't be high on my hitlitht if I could actually move," He jiggled his arms about a bit to prove his point. It seemed he really couldn't move, so Vriska moved down a few steps and sat down. "I gueth you could call me the Thiioniic. You mutht be Mindfang'th granddaughter, am I right?"

"I have no idea. I don't know my grandparents on my dad's side, and my mum's mum died when she was still a kid. She was murdered or something."

"The Thummoner, no doubt."

"What? The thumb owner?"

At this, the Psiioniic's mouth set in a hard line, and Vriska decided that maybe it was best if she did not piss him off too much.

A relatively awkward silence then followed.

Noticing the blue and red glow from behind his goggles, the Brit asked, "So can you shoot lasers from your eyes or something?"

With a sigh, he replied, "Optic blathth?"

She nodded.

"Then yeth."

The girl then sat and thought for a while.

He stared at her dress, making sure his assumption was right, before demanding, "Ithn't that the Handmaid'th dreth?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I was borrowing it." she shrugged.

"Tho…" An uncomfortable look passed his face, which was quickly replaced with concern as he continued with, "How ith she?"

"You mean how is she? Uh, I don't know, she looks fine, I gue- oh!" At the 'oh' her face twisted into a wide smirk as she leaned her face on the palms of her hands. Their faces were now level with each other, allowing her to see quite clearly the etchings of wrinkles and scars on his skin.

Vriska knew full well what that look meant. She had seen it countless times on Eridan's face when he spoke of Feferi. It was the look someone had when they were worried for someone they loved… but… this man looked to be in his late thirties to early forties, same as the Condesce, and yet the Handmaid was only in her early twenties at most. If it had been familial love then she would not have had an issue, but it seemed to her that he remembered the Handmaid in a less than platonic way. Eww.

"Do you like her?"

"What? Thith ith hardly the time for your teenage anticth."

"Teenage antics? What does that even mean?"

"It meanth that adolethcenth are ruled by their hormoneth. Now I athked you a quethtion. How ith the Handmaid?"

"Ugh, maaaaaaaan," Vriska huffed. "She's fine, okay! But what is it with you and this crush or whatever you have on her? It's pretty creepy. You could almost be her dad."

"I am certain you do not underthtand what ith happening."

"Trust me, I am smart, I have this figured out." she grinned smugly.

"You don't know anything!" the Psiioniic roared, making Vriska skitter back a little at the sight of electricity crackling around his eyes.

"Okay okay! Jesus, I don't know anything, fine!" she said quickly, hoping it would placate the man, because she kind of had more questions for him.

Inhaling deeply through his nose, the man stared at her, willing himself to calm down.

"You remind me of someone," she commented once he seemed calm again. "You look like Sollux, kind of. And you lisp in the same way."

"He'th my grandthon, I should hope tho." he replied gruffly.

"What? How? Unless you were ten when you had him, or something stupid like that."

With a sad, tired chuckle, the Psiioniic said, "I can thee why you would think that."

"Is it because you're a mutant?" she continued, unfazed.

"Mutant? I'm no mutant. If anything, I am a hybrid."

Eyebrows pulled tightly together, Vriska frowned, "What? Nice try. But it is not like I'm any different to you, so I don't see why you're being so laaaaaaaame."

"The Condethce…" the Psiioniic joined her frowning, before giving his head a shake. "You theem like a good enough kid… I gueth. So lithten. There are a group of you, named after horothcopes, right?"

He waited for Vriska to nod, before continuing, "You, the twelve of you, are all dethcended from a group of… very thpecial people. The original twelve of uth were thelected and thent away from, uh, thomewhere in order to create tholdiers. But we are only copieth of the twelve, and I gueth that you are copieth of copieth, then."

"Wait wait wait wait. What the fuck?"

"Thith ith hard! Bathically, the greatetht of our race, thome alive, thome dead, were cloned and sent to variouth pointh around the planet once we were thirteen yearth old at… I don't know, thometime at the beginning of the twenty firtht century."

"And let me guess, you had to 'do the dirty' with the locals, as soon as possible, right?" Vriska said, hanging quotations in the air while she put on the Handmaid's accent. "Come on. As if the whole world hasn't heard this plot before."

"Will you let me continue? So yeth, our mithion, I gueth you could call it, wath to produce many offthpring. Which we all did, I gueth. Well, I cannot thay that about the Handmaid. She only had one daughter ath far ath I know. Thethe dethcendantth did not have our powerth, or if they did they were weak, but thome were mentally and phythically wrong. It wath the next generation which would be of interetht to the Condethce."

"The mutants? Which is why they're suddenly all appearing?"

"Exactly. But only one exact replica of the original would appear, which ith you twelve. All the retht are incomplete in thome way, however they are thtill useful, which ith why the Condethce keepth them."

Ignoring the fact that his words meant her sister could well have powers similar to hers, she asked, "Wait, why does she want soldiers with insane powers anyway?"

"Ith it not obviouth? She theemth to have forgotten that she'th only a clone, and ith going to thtart attacking. She wanth to take over."

"Why?"

"She'th an inthane fithh woman. Why do you think?"

For a while, Vriska looked concerned and confused, however it was soon replaced with mockery. "Yeah, because I'm going to believe a crazy old man in a locked up room. I'm not stupid. Anyway, even if this did happen, I can just not listen to her. Free will, remember? Mind control doesn't hurt either."

You do realithe she took your eye a while ago, right?"

"Well, I got a new one put in after the old one broke."

"She extracted thomething from it, what maketh you able to control people. The purple mitht wath a prototype of the product she'th been making. She's perfected it now. She'll thlip it into your food, and inthantly you'll all be under her control. Completely."

So… that was why the Condesce looked so much like Feferi… she was an older version of her. Same with the Psiioniic and Sollux. Not to mention that the mind controlling… thing was pretty disturbing. Although really, how different was it from Vriska's own powers?

"When is she going to do this?"

"Like I thaid. About a week, I cannot be more accurate than that." he sighed.

"But then, if you're one of these amazing ancestors, whatever that's supposed to mean, why are you stuck down here covered in purple tentacles?"

"That'th a long thtory. Bathically, I…" And then his face seemed to light up… to some extent. "I control the power to thith facility. A battery, if you will. The Condethce imprisoned me."

"And the reason you are getting excited is…?"

"If I created a power thurge big enough, I could short-circuit the thythtem and create a blackout. If you were in exactly the right place at the right time, you could potentially use thith to ethcape."

Gazing down at him, Vriska slowly raised an eyebrow. "And the reason you're suddenly jumping to help me is?"

"You're from Group Eight. Both my grandthon and the Handmaid are tied to you in thome form. If we went through with thith, you mutht promithe that you'd take thothe two with you.

"Oh wow, yeah, so presuming you can create this powersurge at the right time and place, while all four of us are conveniently placed at the right place at the right time and _do_ escape, you do realize, of course, that the Condesce has nanobots implanted into the walls of our hearts. If we so much as leave the boundaries of this shithole without her permission, those nanobots will kill us."

To her surprise, he laughed.

"She'th lying to you, there are no nanobots. The mutantth killed in the village thcenario were killed by thniperth and then absorbed by the floor. It had nothing to do with nanobots at all. You're too preciouth to her; thomeone elthe could reprogram them and kill you."

"Okay okay. So if I did believe you, which I don't, where would be have to be?"

"You'd have to get the Handmaid in on it, or you would have no chance at all. Even with all of your combined thkillth, I'd thtill thay get ath clothe to the entrance ath you can uthing the Handmaid'th clearance, then when the power goeth out, run."

"The Handmaid? But she's employed by the Condesce? I can't see why she'd let us escape."

He shook his head. "She'th ath much a prithoner ath you. Anyway, go through the door, over the fence and into the dethert."

"Into the desert? We'd be dead in hours, it's too much. We'd have no supplies or anything."

"Motht people have forgotten thith, but there ith a hidden catacomb of tunnelth beneath a large area of the United Thtateth. Find an entrance to thith and you'll be thafe. Any tracking deviceth won't work underground with all the rock, and there should thtill be rethourceth and the like from the war."

Well… the blue-blood had to admit that she was being swayed by this idea. Even if it was coming from some crazy guy she'd stumbled upon by accident. The simple idea of freedom enamored her, and so she asked, "When will this power surge happen?"

"Three dayth time at thometime in the late evening. I cannot do exact timeth, ath the only meanth I have to tell the time ith the thky." With a quick gaze upwards at the constellations passing by his window, he then said, "Good luck."

And with a final smirk, Vriska said, "Don't worry. I have aaaaaaaall of the luck."

* * *

><p>Reuniting with the Handmaid after her little escapade was the first issue, and once this was done, Vriska then had the tricky task of getting the Condesce to merge their group together once more. After an hour of arguing, and honestly near the end, some pleading, She relented, appearing to be none the wiser about her and the Psiioniic's little chat.<p>

Group Eights first proper meet up after over three years apart was strained to say the least. Sollux had still not gotten over the fact that Vriska had used him to kill Aradia, which was fair enough. And needless to say, Tavros was not particularly pleased over the whole thing either. When she attempted to explain the plan to them, they scoffed at her and left her to her own devices for the rest of the training session.

Once they left for dinner (she still did not want to risk eating with the rest of the mutants) Vriska attempted to talk to the Handmaid. Telling her that she had spoken to the Psiioniic and he had a plan for them. Initially, she had been hesitant to tell her about it, even if the Psiioniic was convinced she would be in on it. But had decided it was worth a shot.

"The Psiioniic?" The Handmaid sighed loudly, resting her chin on the palm of her hand. "Yeah, that sounds just like him. Well, he did have a good head on him back in the day, but recently his mind's been fallin' apart. He's been trapped in that room for nearly a century without any form of mental stimulation," Then with a snort, added, "Well, except for the Condesce's visits."

"What?"

"Between you and me, I'm pretty sure the Condesce is stuck on him. I mean likes him."

"No way!"

The Handmaid nodded, glad she could talk to someone about this. "Anyway, so yes, I guess I could give this plan of yours a whirl."

Another brief training session followed this, with Vriska fighting against Tavros, who had greatly improved since she had last fought him. Lucky, with all of the training she'd had to endure with the Condesce, Vriska had improved as well.

It was… fun. Both knew they were unlikely to land a hit on the other, so they were unreserved with giving the swipes and stabs their all. With having to lug the lance about as a weapon, Tavros's arm muscles had developed nicely; a fact that Vriska casually noticed.

The Handmaid subtly spoke about the plan to the boys, careful to avoid the microphones and cameras about the room. From her, they agreed to it, and so it was decided that they would go through with it.

Following a deserved shower, the blue-blood left to her room. After a near attack from Sollux a month or so following Aradia's death, where he had molten a hole in Vriska's sleeping pod with his lasers, the Brit had been given her own room in a different section of the retainment organization.

It was sparse, to the say the least, with only a bed and a small bedside table. And today, luckily, there was no Eridan waiting for her. While she would gladly beat that kid up, as she was in a vicious mood after being beaten by Tavros, she needed to think the plan through. Besides, all he was wanting to do recently was kiss, which was kinda really lame. Although she did appreciate the company.

In fact… maybe she could have done with someone to distract her mind before this big escapade. If there was one thing Eridan was good at (other than infuriating her) was distracting her…

* * *

><p><strong>== Enough Vriska, wow. Be the Handmaid, and escape<strong>

You are now the Handmaid, a couple of minutes before the escape

Watching the three members of Group Eight doing something as mediocre as cleaning a stain from the wall was amusing to say the least.

One of their newer groups of mutants had an accident the day prior, which involved a dubious brownish-red stain being created on the wall. When the Handmaid had heard Doc Scratch complaining about this, she immediately volunteered her group for clean up duty, because 'they've been kicking up a fuss lately' and 'need some good old fashioned labor to fix them up'.

He had wholeheartedly agreed, and that was why Vriska, Tavros and Sollux were now scrubbing at a stained wall with soapy sponges, the view of the orange desert only a couple dozen metres away. Of course, said desert was through three sheets of steel-reinforced glass doors, all electronically locked with camera's at every angle and a security guard at the far end of the room.

It was when Vriska began to complain about how her arm was sore, that the lights went out and immediately all of the equipment they were holding was dropped and the mad dash for the desert began.

The first door was opened with a blast of Sollux's eye-lasers. Usually, the glasses would have been locked to his face to prevent him injuring the staff, however the Handmaid had the key to them, and oddly enough they were not locked.

The second door was slammed open with a slab of telekinetic energy. Turned out that the Handmaid could do such things.

The third and final door took two attempts to open. First, Vriska tried to control the guard before it into opening it, but he had a strange band shielding his eyes that prevented her from making the necessary connection. Turned out without any electricity it was open anyway, however, and so they ran through into the wall of heat from the sun.

Only the gate to go, which was easily dealt with by a combination of optic blasts and telekinesis.

And into the desert, they ran and ran and ran, not stopping even when their limbs were exhausted and sweat ran down their backs.

Not even when Tavros noticed the lone tear running down the Handmaid's face.

* * *

><p>End of part two.<p>

**== Leave The Retainment Organization for Lucid Liathdaonna.**

* * *

><p>Your name is Karkat Vantas.<p>

You have a passion for RIDICULOUSLY TERRIBLE ROMANTIC MOVIES AND ROMCOMS. You should really be EMBARRASSED for liking this DREADFUL CINEMA, but for some reason you are not. You like to program computers, but you are NOTORIOUSLY PRETTY AWFUL AT IT. Your programs invariably damage the machines on which they are executed, which is just as well, since you like to believe you specialize in COMPUTER VIRUSES.

When you mature, you aspire to join the ranks of the most lethal members of your society, the THRESHECUTIONERS. You like to practice with your REALLY COOL SICKLE, but you just wind up looking like KIND OF A DOOFUS BY YOURSELF IN YOUR ROOM.

A while ago, but not that long ago, your skin started to TURN AN UNAPPEALING HUE OF GREY. You hid it by wearing TURTLENECK SWEATERS for a good chunk of time, but the GREY SPREAD so you RAN AWAY AND HID but through a number of SHENANIGANS you got STABBED IN THE GUT. It was when the paramedics came that they SAW THE GREY and after healing you were SENT OFF TO T.R.O.L.L. Even though you're a mutant blood. They really SAVED YOUR ASS THERE… kind of…

Lousy goddamn stupid radiation.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Soooo… that's part two done! Next up is an intermission (which is going to be long and take a while, sorry), and then onwards to part three aaaah! Thank you so much for all of the support, as always! Which leads me onto how I've received fanart for this! ALKSJDKS thank you to you both! I've reblogged them on the tumblr site for this, but I noticed that one which I'd only just found was from 4 weeks ago and aaah! So basically, if you have done fanart for this, please tell me! Otherwise I have no idea it exists and cannot shower love on you D:

And to the anon that would like more Karkat, I can't promise any of him in the next chapter, but I'll see what I can do in the one after!

And thanks for reading! ^^


	21. Intermission

A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the thirteenth of December, is this young man's dad's birthday. Though it was almost seventeen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!

What will the name of this young man be?

Enter name…

**== Zoosmell Pooplord**

Try again, smartass.

**== Try again: John Egbert**

Your name is John Egbert.

As was previously mentioned it is your DAD'S BIRTHDAY. A number of CAKES are scattered about your room. You still haven't a clue why he's baking YOU cakes on HIS birthday, but whatever. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES.

You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT. You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE, and are an aspiring AMATEUR MAGICIAN. You also like to play GAMES sometimes.

**== This all sounds very familiar… retrieve arms**

Yeah, because that gag's not old! People have been using that one for years, and it was already old immediately after it was said. Who even uses that joke now anyway?

In actual fact, John had not 'stood', as such, in his room since around half an hour prior, when he had returned from his quest to grab some breakfast. Since then, he had been sat before the computer, a chat box open with red and blue text plastering the white background.

Suddenly, a noise from outside.

He span somewhat lethargically in his wheelie chair, turning to face the window, then dragged himself towards it, refusing to get up out of the chair.

Outside, his dad was visible, doing one of his legendary infinite car-washes. He had not yet noticed the large van parked on the kerb.

Maybe it was the post, which would be pretty sweet; they could be delivering birthday packages. Such as the one John himself had ordered.

A man climbed out of the passenger side of the car and made his way toward John's dad. Their conversation sounded mumbled at best from John's distance, and the fact that his dad had that pipe of his stuck in the corner of his mouth did little to help the enunciation.

Wait, his dad had raised his voice. Odd. Even when John had his super bratty moments, the man had never so much as gone over a firm 'no'.

They continued to speak, before another came from the van with a formal looking document. She handed it to John's father, which he scanned. Although even after reading it, he still looked mad.

John, naturally intrigued by what was going on, tried to work his way downstairs… only to find that his door was locked. Stupid fathers and their lousy goddamn stupid plans to stop you sneaking downstairs to peek at his latest cake before it was done. He wouldn't even have done that! Jeez.

Heading back over to the window, he was alarmed to see one of the van owners, a strange person clad completely in black, pinning his dad to the car body, his arms tucked behind his back as to not be of any bother. Another two of these people started heading towards his door. But then… where was the other guy?

Knock knock.

Ah. There he was.

Well the joke was on him since the door was locked- oh. Okay, never mind, the man had decided to knock the door down instead.

And while he was no Dave, John had always been a fairly scrawny kid, so the black-clad people had little difficulty in grabbing the boy and throwing him into the back of the van.

And so it began.

* * *

><p>A young lady stands in her bedroom. Due to a violent storm, her house had just lost power, along with her wireless internet connection. This has severed her link to the outside world. Darn. This young lady named…<p>

Named…

It's on the tip of your tongue. What was the name of this young lady again?

Enter name…

**== Flighty Broad**

No, that wasn't it!

**== One more time: Rose Lalonde**

Your name is Rose Lalonde.

As was previously mentioned you are without ELECTRICITY, although your LAPTOP COMPUTER still functions on BATTERY POWER… which has conveniently decided to RUN OUT. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for RATHER OBSCURE LITERATURE. You enjoy creative writing and are somewhat secretive about it.

You have a fondness for the BESTIALLY STRANGE AND FICTITIOUS, and sometimes dabble in PSYCHOANALYSIS. You also like to KNIT, and your room is a BIT OF A MESS. And on occasion, if just the right one strikes your fancy, you like to play VIDEO GAMES with your friends.

**== Retrieve arms from the purple box**

Not this again…

Rose continued to play a particularly haunting refrain on her violin. Without any power, she had decided that practicing her violin would be a fine pursuit, ignoring all odd urges to writhe like a flagellum and puke on her bed.

Because, ugh! What a terrible idea! The thought alone made her sick to her stomach. Really, whomever it was that was messing with her had a pretty lame sense of humour.

Well, at least the overpowering sound of her mother's vacuum cleaner had stopped.

But darn, she had really wanted to check with John if her package to him had arrived yet. If she had planned it all correctly, it should have arrived bang on his dad's birthday, but she of all people knew how treacherous the postal service could be, when most of her own birthday presents had gotten mixed up and ended up arriving weeks later. Bluh.

It would serve as a lesson to him not to over rely on her for his own dad's birthday presents.

Her mother's voice rang clear up the stairs, "Roooosie darling?"

Oh man.

"Yes?"

"I'm just heading out to get something. I'll be back soon."

"Okay." Rose called back, before turning to the window again.

_Crack_!

The jolts of lighting shooting through the sky cast a dramatic light upon the car heading down their driveway. Rose watched it go, before slinking out of her room.

**== Contemplate season**

How you hate this season.

Food food food. Damn. There had to be some somewhere in this house…

Pausing in front of the refrigerator, once the battle ground of a passive-aggressive stint, Rose smirked. The evidence of this battle with her mother had remained on the fridge for several years now, both too amused by it to take it down.

Well anyway, passive-aggressive battles aside, the fridge served its purpose well and delivered the goods. A simple omelette later, Rose was climbing the stairs back to her room when…

Knock knock!

Huh? She could not imagine it to be anyone other than her mother but… her mum would not knock; she would just barge inside in that characteristically tipsy manner of hers.

"Coming!"

Rose dashed into her room, fishing her house keys from her bag before descending the stairs and unlocking the door.

Before her stood a man with a shock of light-coloured hair, and eerie green eyes against skin even paler than hers. Which was impressive, given the little sunlight she felt was of the weak New-Yorkian variety, so anyone paler than her must hardly get out at all. Behind him stood three people clad head to toe in a lightweight body armour.

"Good evening, my dear. My name is Doc Scratch. Is your mother in?" he asked.

* * *

><p>Suddenly, a really cool dude. He's standing around being chill, like cool dudes are known to do sometimes. A cool dude like this probably has a real cool name. But he probably wouldn't just tell you what it was. He'd be way too busy for that. Busy being totally sweet.<p>

But you could always try to guess his name. And if you were right, he may nod ever so slightly. That's a cool dude's way of letting you know there may just be hope for you yet.

Enter name…

**== Insufferable pri-**

This guy doesn't have time for this sort of bullshit.

**== Try again: Dave Strider**

Your name is Dave Strider.

It is an UNSEASONABLY WARM April day. Your BEDROOM WINDOW is open to let some air in, and your FAN is cranked. Arguably even more cranked would be your FLY BEATS, which brings us to your variety of INTERESTS. A cool dude like you is sure to have plenty.

You have a penchant for spinning out UNBELIEVABLY ILL JAMS with your TURNTABLES AND MIXING GEAR. You like to rave about BANDS NO ONE'S EVER HEARD OF BUT YOU. You collect WEIRD DEAD THINGS PRESERVED IN VARIOUS WAYS. You are an AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER and operate your own MAKESHIFT DARKROOM. You maintain a number of IRONICALLY HUMOROUS BLOGS, WEBSITES AND SOCIA NETWORKING PROFILES. And if the inspiration striked, you won't hesitate to drop some PHAT RHYMES on a mofo and REPRESENT.

**== Quickly retrieve arms from cinderblocks**

Nah.

Odd, the guy he had been talking to had suddenly disappeared. Rude.

Oh well. Not like Dave minded John ignoring him. No, not in the least. In fact, this meant that there were other candidates now open to pester.

Dave reached out to turn the electric fan up a notch, only to realise he had already tried to do that, and with the same results each time. The fan had broken earlier that morning and he had yet to get a new one. It had been on the blink for a number of weeks now, although usually a sharp rap on the top got it back into order, but apparently it was too far gone now.

Eh. Maybe later. If he could be bothered to brave the long walk to the electronics store… in the heat…

And then lug the heavy box up all those stairs, since some dumbass kid had decided it would be a fun idea to break the lift. Who even did that in this part of town?

But it was so hot, some kinds of his preserved animals were beginning to, well, stink.

Oh? Someone was contacting him.

gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]

GG: hi dave!

TG: hey sup

GG: not much really!

GG: i just wanted to ask you if youd spoken to john or rose today :)

TG: yeah i was just dropping phat birthday rhymes on john at all angles

TG: bitch didnt know what parts to cover

TG: but hes idle now right in the middle of a choice verse

GG: someone sounds upset!

GG: i hope a certain cool kids cool isnt slipping! ;)

TG: calm it harley that shit aint happening no time soon

GG: if you say so! ;)

TG: you might want to get that left eyelid of yours checked out

TG: looks like its stuck in a permanently suggestive way stuff like that can destroy a man

GG: oops!

GG: yes ill get it checked by a doctor immediately thank you so much cool kid

GG: you might just have saved a life today!

GG: ;p

GG: anyway i was just checking because i cant get through to either of them

GG: time zone shenanigans aside

TG: rose mentioned something about a storm so maybe the electricitys down

TG: doesnt explain john though but who knows what that kids up to

GG: cant your 'best bro' senses tell you anything?!

TG: i sense another wink

TG: hold it in harley youre better than this

GG: lol

TG: going cold turkey thats my girl

GG: youre so silly dave!

GG: so i guess theyve both just lost connection then

GG: anyway how is everything in texas? :)

GG: (and no winks!)

TG: well hot for a start

GG: oh nooo! :(

TG: i dont know what you were expecting really

GG: your fans broken again isnt it?

GG: just get a new one already!

TG: shit woman are you a psychic

GG: lucky guess?

GG: you were complaining to john about it and he told me!

TG: so youve been lying to me about being a psychic this whole time

TG: how could you

GG: dave!

GG: we can talk about my non existent psychic powers later!

GG: go get yourself a new fan!

TG: s'alright

TG: its not that hot

GG: prove it mister!

TG: man what do you want me to do

GG: i want you to go get yourself a new fan or prove to me youre not sitting there overheating

GG: i know what youre like!

TG: okay maam

TG: this is me logging off doing a fucking acrobatic pirouette off pesterchum to go buy a fan

GG: damn right you are!

TG: see ya then

TG: say hi to your grand dad for me too ok

GG: yeah sure!

GG: bye!

GG: 3

turntechGodhead [TG] is now offline

GG: wait dave!

GG: i think someones broken into my house

GG: fuck

Well, at least in this bright sunshine, Dave had an excuse to be wearing his shades. And Jade was probably onto something, making him go get a new fan. It was getting all kinds of hot in there, what with the sun heating up the building, combined with the warmth from his electronics and the fact that the fan was broken.

He'd yelled that he was going out, just in case bro was in, but hell if Dave knew where his elusive brother was.

Ugh. This sun was unbearable, even in the loose white t-shirt he was wearing. Okay, maybe full-length dark coloured jeans were not the best option, but there was no way he was wearing shorts or something. Christ, who did you think he was?

And the heat would certainly explain why few people were out today.

Wait… he'd forgotten the sun-cream. Fuck. He was going to burn like one of John's dad's cakes when the timer's batteries ran out of juice. Except maybe not burn in the going charred and black sense of the word. More, go a very attractive shade of red over his freckles, with the worst affected areas of skin peeling all over the place. What a delight.

Calm it Strider. Almost at the electronics store- huh?

Fine, call him paranoid. But after growing up with Bro Strider all of his life, Dave's senses were pretty damn fine, and he could have sworn he had heard someone behind him, their steps matching his perfectly except… there. Another slip up, a footstep slightly out of time.

Right, just carry on a few more steps, act as if all is fine and-

A cloth was shoved over his mouth, and in his shock, Dave inhaled the vapours like an idiot. He vaguely recalled being dragged into the back of a van before blacking out.

* * *

><p>A silly girl naps by her flowers. It is quite likely that she tired herself out with a variety of silly antics, as silly girls are often known to do. She may have a silly name too. Or maybe not. It is hard to say for sure without asking her.<p>

But since she's slumbering so peacefully, it would be a shame to wake her up. You might as well just give her a name right now.

Enter name…

**== Farmstink Buttlass**

Alas! She is too deep in her slumber to protest at the name!

**== Wake up!**

You try to rouse Farmstink from her slumber, but she is really down for the count!

It looks as if she is holding some sort of NOTE.

**== Retrieve arms from-**

They are RIGHT THERE. In PLAIN SIGHT. Look, they may as well be FLASHING RED and we are not going to end this final introduction on such a STUPID AND IMMATURE note, are we?

**== Drop pumpkin on Farmstink**

Fucks sake. Even if there WAS a pumpkin, that would be a terrible thing to do to poor, sweet Farmstink.

**== Read note**

'farmstink? that is incredibly silly and a little bit rude! my name is =='

**== Try again: Jade Harley**

Your name is Jade Harley.

You have just woken from a restful nap, and as usual you have no recollection of having fallen asleep. You have quite a number of INTERESTS. So many in fact, you have trouble keeping track of them all, even with an assortment of COLOURFUL REMINDERS on your fingers to help you sort out everything on your mind. Nevertheless, when you spend time in your GARDEN ATRIUM, the only thing on your mind is your deeps passion for HORTICULTURE.

Jade, despite all earlier claims of being very silly, was currently hiding beneath her desk, and having just smacked a magazine of bullets into her rifle, was deciding whether calling her dog to her would be a good idea or not.

Immediately after Dave had left their conversation, she had heard a loud crash from downstairs. And when you lived on a random island in the middle of the Pacific with no one but yourself and your dog… well… it was a little alarming to say the least.

And despite how it would probably have no effect whatsoever, Jade desperately sent out messages to her friends, informing them of her situation, and whether they knew what to do. But to her dismay, none replied. None whatsoever. Sons of bitches the lot of them. And one daughter as well, she guessed.

Actually, no, that was a little unfair on their mums. Whoever they were. Argh, what? Focus, Harley!

Becquerel could suddenly be heard barking from downstairs. Well shit.

The chair and desk combo would probably give her a few seconds of concealment, but nothing more than that. If she was going to drive these people away, whoever they were, then she was going to have to make a big show of power and bluff them off, as she didn't really want to just blast them to smithereens.

Then, above the sound of Dave's music mixes, she could hear the stairs creaking.

Okay okay okay okay. Calm.

Jade took a deep breath, resting the front of the rifle on the chair to steady it, then began to wait.

… and wait…

… and wait…

Jeez, this burglar or whatever it was sure was taking their time getting up the stairs. Although she could sympathise a little on that front: the stairs took ages to climb, which was why she almost always used the transportalizer pads.

Creak… creak… creak… tap tap tap.

They had reached the top floor of her home: the greenhouse.

"Hello?"

A kind looking gentleman walked into the room, clad in a white suit over a vibrant green shirt. It did not immediately seem as if he would want to cause Jade harm. Perhaps he had simply crashed a plane or boat nearby, and was looking for help. But judging by the all of the bite marks and rips on his suit, Bec was not as optimistic about the man's arrival. And that's really what mattered.

A bullet left her gun and found its mark, chipping the wall right next to the man's head.

"Jade, isn't it?" he asked, eyes seeking her out, and finding her almost instantly. At the widening of her gaze, he decided that he was correct, and so continued. "Jade, come now, we have no need for such aggressive mannerisms."

"How do you know my name?" Having not properly spoken in a while, her voice initially came out a little squeaky.

A small smirk rose on the man's face, as he ignored the question. "My name is Doc Scratch, and I am here to take you away from here. Somewhere safe."

This Doc Scratch must be from social services, of whatever the equivalent would be in the middle of the pacific. Wait, since her granddad had owned the island… surely it would not be accountable to US laws… oh gross. Jade could not claim to be an expert in such matters, but ever since she and her grandpa had moved to this island when she was thirteen, it had been as if they were in a land of their own, and safe from the outside world of mutants and impending war. She'd never had to think about things such as 'custody' and 'schooling', so she had not bothered learning about it.

And then grandpa had died, and now she had this guy breaking into her house. Fucking great.

"Who are you?" she demanded, aiming the gun at his chest.

"I was under the impression that I had introduced myself already. I am Do-"

"I got that part," Jade snarled. "I meant, _who_ are you, and _what_ are you doing on my island?"

"Oh. I would have thought that a seventeen year old girl with only a dog for company would be thrilled to see someone else on her island. Especially such a charming man as I."

"_Why are you here_?" she asked firmly, raising her voice slightly.

"I am certain that I have already told you that, as well. Come out from under the desk, and I shall tell you in greater detail."

"I'm not going anywhere. And don't come closer."

"Please, my dear, be reasonable." he purred, taking a step forwards before a bullet clipped the side of his thigh, staining the surrounding area of fabric a bright lime-green with his blood. So they were of the same blood caste, huh?

Jade aimed the muzzle of her gun back at his chest, and growled, "_I said don't come any fucking closer_!"

"I tried to give you a chance to come peacefully, yet you disregarded my manners." He then backed out from the room, and she could hear his footsteps plodding down the corridor, accompanied by the odd curse word muttered just under his breath.

Jade let out the breath she had been holding. With the intruder's leg ruined, it was unlikely that he could do any damage to her now-

Okay, hold the phone, she could now hear the pattering of feet rushing up the stairs. She should have known that man would not come alone. But honestly, this was all so weird and confusing to begin with, that Jade excused herself for not having a clue what was going on.

It was then when three people in body armour dashed into the room. The first took the brunt of Jade's bullets, then pulled a sword from their odd, dragon-headed cane and sliced at the chair in front of Jade. The top of it fell to the ground, and Jade was certain that if she could see the rapier-wielder's face, they would be grinning.

This person yanked the chair back from it's place in front of Jade, with another pulling the gun from her grip near effortlessly. The final member of the trio dragged her out from under the desk by the tops of her arms, then as soon as the girl stood up, drew them behind her in a secure hold.

"_Let go of me_!" she shrieked, attempting to kick at the person behind her with poor results. It was then when she noticed the tall horns on the two – uh, ninjas? – before her. "_Wait! You're mutants_!"

The ninja-thing with the sword nodded to the one holding her, a signal, it seemed, to smash her in the side of the head with the handle of their sickle. Bastard.

* * *

><p>When Jade awoke, she was aware of very little, other than the blood that had dried down one side of her face, and of the soft rumbling coming through the floor.<p>

As the fuzziness of her mind cleared, she established that she was in the back of a van. And judging by the hushed voices, there were other people in here… but Jade was in no mood to attempt the arduous task of sitting up and opening her eyes, so she lay where she was a while longer. Perhaps she could figure out who they were without having to ask…

"Is she waking?"

Ugh, was that all they were going to say? Although maybe they had discussed their identities and all that jazz while she was still asleep. Drat.

"Jade?" A warm hand pressed against her shoulder, then lightly shook her. "Jade?"

Time to get up. With a little help from whom had shaken her, she sat up and was met with the faces of three teens, probably all around her age. Oh!

To her right sat Rose, a pretty violet blood that she spoke to often via pesterchum and video chat, but had never met in person, although both Dave and John had met her in real life. She had been the one to help her up.

"'sup, Harley?" She turned to see Dave sitting at her left, those trademark shades sitting comfortably on the bridge of his nose and, oh wow, that was a sunburn and a half.

"Dave! Your nose is bright red!" she giggled, and the small smirk on his face turned into a pout.

"Shit, you don't need to drill me too. I've already had Egbert on my case for the past few hours."

So then the other person…

"Hi Jade!"

"John!" Jade leapt at the boy opposite her and hugged him tightly. "Hi! Did my package come?"

"Sorry, it hadn't arrived when I checked last. Well, before I got kidnapped anyway."

"So that's why none of you replied to my messages!"

"Yes. We were all too busy being knocked out with chloroform to reply to you. Sorry." Rose smirked.

"I'm so disappointed in you all! I mean really, that's no excuse," Jade sniggered, although her expression sobered up quickly as she said, "So. Do any of you know what's going on?"

"'fraid not. We've all just got bunged in here until further notice. And not, shit, better check the news every minute, 'cause that bitch is updating faster than you can say noodles; more like picking up the paper at the end of the day as a collection of all the crap that's gone on in the day."

"Dave. You are babbling." Rose said, which shut the boy up instantly. It seemed to be a habit of his when he got panicky, which, admittedly, could be pretty funny. "That didn't even make sense anyway."

"Yeah it did, were you not even listening? Jesus Christ, Lalonde. Pay some fucking attention to what's going on in your life now and then, would you?"

"Why? Are you going to start rapping about it?"

"What? No."

As the blonds continued their quiet banter, Jade turned back to John, "So you honesty have no idea what's going on?"

"Well I've been thinking it through in my head, and the best I can come up with is that… well the van that pulled up outside my house kinda looked like one of those vans they picked up mutants in."

"And the people who grabbed me had horns or something… oh my god, John! What if the people who've been taking the mutants are actually training them into ninja-soldiers?"

That sentence caught the attention of the Strider-Lalonde duo, and they both gave her incredulous looks. Jade was also fairly certain that she could hear a snigger coming from the front of the van.

"I know you were on an island for four years, but come on, seriously." Dave then stopped, as if a great idea had struck him. "Hey, you're finally off that island and chilling with the cool kids now. How does it feel? Wicked bananas, right?"

"Absolutely!"

And then the subject of why the four of them had been kidnapped was dropped.

After another hour or two in the van, they arrived at some strange location: conglomeration of dusty glass buildings in the middle of a desert.

A group of mutants stood outside, soaking up the sunlight. Their skin was a pale hue of grey, with their horns filled down to mere stumps. Weird.

Once they were all securely restrained, with cuffs and the three mutant-ninja-soldier-things walking alongside them, Doc Scratch led them inside, straight towards a member of staff. They then followed this person through a near endless series of blank white walls and Giger paintings, descended a reasonable distance in a lift, and then continued to walk again.

Where they stopped, a large door awaited, and it was here the errand boy left them.

"Before you go in, I must warn you. The owner of the facility, this woman that you are about to meet is somewhat… different to whom you may be expecting. Do try not to stare; otherwise she may decide to punish you. And do not speak unless she directly asks you a question."

The four teens stood before Doc Scratch simply stared at him. He decided to take this as them understanding his words, and then knocked on the door.

"You may enter." said a voice from the other side of the thick wood.

Sitting behind the desk was a mutant. A mutant. A fully grown, adult mutant, which was _weird_ because the grey-skinned variety had only begun to appear around a decade or so at most ago, and none of them were over the age of thirty, certainly. This woman was definitely in her forties so…

"Good afternoon," She said with a shark-like grin. "How nice of you to finally grace my office, beta. Please, sit down. I am Her Imperious Condescension."

She told them about the mutants in her care, and how She was desperately trying to heal them, or at the very least provide them with jobs so that they could feel worthwhile. She spoke of the three mutants who had brought them here, and how they had turned their lives around.

"How so? By kidnapping innocent people? I fail to see how that is even remotely 'turning your life around' material." Rose pointed out scathingly.

At this, the Condesce rose to her feet, a strange smile on her face as she stepped around them to sit on the desk. She then slapped Rose about the face, leaving a pink hand-shaped mark on her cheek.

"Thank you for your contribution, Rose."

Normally, the other three would have cried out about Rose's treatment but… it felt almost as if there were a heavy pressure weighing down on them, preventing them from moving or even speaking.

"Now. I understand that obviously, you will all be confused, scared and wondering why I have brought you here." She folded her hands together on her lap, then smiled, "We are on the very brink of war. In fact, what is going to start this fight is about to happen in… forty-five minutes. The four of you will be very useful to me after this war. So I need to protect you over the next period of time. This could take any length of time from a few months to a few years. We'll see. Although I doubt that your people will be able to last until April. And certainly not June."

She enjoyed watching their faces as she spoke. How they were unable to express their horror in any way, other than the pattern of their breathing, as the Condesce was controlling every aspect of them save for that.

"So. This is how this shall work. A key member of this warfare I had organised has gone missing, and I need some replacements. We shall be able to get the first phase done fine without them, but for the next parts, we shall need you, and you." She explained, pointing at Dave and then Jade. "You, John, will be involved in protecting our base here. And as for you, Rose. I'm afraid we shall be keeping you as captive."

A sharp inhalation of breath. Yet it sounded more angry, insulted even, than frightened. Although without the facial expressions, it was hard to distinguish between them for sure.

"Well, perhaps 'captive' is not the right choice of word. You shall still be receiving the same amount of training as the others. However you will not be leaving this facility. It is needed to make certain that your friends cooperate. Unlike our other little soldiers, we have not trained you to have loyalty for us. We did not have the time, as we put off taking you. A mistake on my part."

The Condesce then paused, thinking through what she had just said, before continuing, "Although I suppose I was correct at the time. Had we begun kidnapping mutation free humans, the government would have gotten involved, and we would have had to begin this war before we were ready.

'So now, we have about a week to bring out your abilities before we throw you headlong into battle. With your heritage, I am certain you will be able to-"

At these words, the lighting in the room, already dim, flashed out, dropping them into darkness for a few long seconds before the electricity returned.

Frankly, the four would have preferred to sit in the darkness, as the pure fury scored onto her face was terrifying.

"You may leave."

* * *

><p>As She had promised, the next week was filled to the brim with intensive training.<p>

On the first day, their clothes were taken from them and replaced with, allegedly, the standard gear for mutants. Grey-green boiler suits in a strange fleecy material, with a pair of tight, black cut-offs and a vest underneath, topped off with boots. It was surprisingly comfy, actually. And honestly, Dave was just glad he could keep his sunnies.

The rest of this day, the three that were not being kept hostage were tested upon in all manners of ways. Fitness tests, cognitive tests, DNA tests, tests that involved the latest mass spectrometers, tests with strange machinery and tests that could only be described as 'sciency' even by Jade.

At the end of the day, they simply collapsed side by side on one of the beds, and slept through the night in that manner. Somehow, both John and Jade found themselves hugging the Texan boy in their sleep. It had made for an interesting position when they awoke.

Apparently, the room they were staying in had belonged to one of the deserters, only with a bunk bed shoved into the corner. They hadn't had enough time to fix them up with some of their fancy sleeping pods, so the more traditional room was what they got. Not that any of them were complaining.

The second day was the results day, and it was when they branched off into their mini teams. Jade and Dave would have to work together to compliment their skill sets, while John trained with a petite woman from New-Orleans.

"Hello. My name is the Handmaid, and I am your mentor, since I've gone and messed up in the future or something, so now I've got to deal with you humans." Jade and Dave could do little more than gawk at the tall mutant before them. "So I'm the lady who's swell at time-travel… apparently. Something which you've got to master in a couple a' days, shades."

Dave nodded. "Got it, yeah. Master time-travel, sure thing. Anything else you'd like me to do while I'm at it? Slay you some dragons and rescue a damsel from a t-rex then bring you an original copy of Macbeth, because I will be that knight. Saving people through time and space. Hell, I'll even throw in the Declaration of Independence for free. Make Nic Cage proud."

The Handmaid simply gave him a blank look as she tried to figure out the comments. "Excuse me?"

"No, I think I'm the one who missed the point. I mean come on. Time travel? Are you shitting me?"

"I shit you not, as I think it's said." she smirked. "I have to say, I've my doubts about whether I'll be able to get you outta this fix. My time shifts are involuntary."

"Great. Thanks."

"And you, girl, I guess we'll just put you in some tricky situations until you figure it out. Same goes for you, shades. It works like a charm."

It turned out that not only was this Handmaid completely serious about 'tricky situations', but that she was also _under exaggerating_ about said 'tricky situations'.

Her idea of this 'tricky situation' was dunking them into water containing an oddly large squid-like creature, with the only safe haven being a ledge about ten metres above them. When this failed to work (and both Jade and Dave were covered in bands of sucker marks), she got them to go across an assault course that involved heavy usage of mashy-spike-plates and hot water.

Saving them several times with her telekinetic abilities (arguably freaking the both of them out more than the near death experience), the Handmaid then frowned at the lack of results. It would seem that she needed to use a slightly different tactic.

And so following the worst of their wounds being tended to with the latest nanobots, she took them both into a vast room with racks of assorted weapons, a sky-light and scorch marks on the walls.

"You use swords, right?" the maroon-blooded mutant said, and when the boy nodded, she threw a sword at him. Luckily for Dave, he caught it. "Well, _you_ can fight the Brobot then."

"I guess so."

"Attaboy! And Jade?"

"Yes?"

"You're handy with a gun, aren't you? Well, I have some targets left over from my last group. You can use those." She escorted Jade over to the far end of the room, where the burn marks were most evident. "Targets are going to start moving all around you. When they do this, keep calm and don't blow off. Got it?"

They spent the remainder of that day fighting their targets, before shuffling back to their bedroom. While the rapid application of nanobots to their wounds got rid of the physical injury speedily, Jade and Dave were still mentally exhausted. The healing process involved with nanobots also took a lot out of the patient, mainly as in the final stages, it involved the tiny robots drawing matter from the recipients own food stores to heal.

John, exhausted like his team mates, lay sprawled across the only single bed, already asleep. At this sight, Jade and Dave locked eyes before making a mad dash for bottom bunk, neither wanting to bother with the climb for the top. Jade with her slightly longer legs won and dove the best she could onto the bed, claiming it as her own.

Sleep, she decided, was something that would come easily after their long and tiring day. But it seemed Jade was wrong. She lay with her eyes shut for a few seconds at a time, as when she kept them closed for longer, images of that odd squid creature would work their way into her mind and freak her out. After a good five minutes of this, she called out softly, "Dave?"

There was no reply for a bit, and she decided that perhaps he had fallen asleep, yet he then answered, "What is it, Harley?"

"I can't get to sleep."

He paused again.

"Neither can I. The squid, right?"

"Yeah."

They lay in silence for a while longer, before his voice, just about audible from the bed above murmured, "Good job on taking on that squid, by the way. It was like fucking sashimi out there, minus the dipping-sauce."

"Thanks. I figured that being eaten by a squid was a good enough emergency for the emergency knife she gave us," giggled Jade. "I thought she just wanted us to kill it, but she still looked disappointed at the end…"

"It's probably to do with that time travel bullshit." Dave sighed, then judging by the creaking of the bed, he turned over. "Maybe she's trying to 'awaken' our powers by putting us in dangerous situations."

"Just like in your Japanese animes!"

"Hey those were for strictly ironic purposes." he reminded, as if he was trying to win back 'cool-kid' credentials. But Jade was not about to let him off that easily.

"I think all those weird dead things you collect are way less cool than anime, Dave."

"What? Fuck you, my preserved animals are the shit."

Jade tried her best to stifle her laughter, mainly so that she would not wake John but also to prevent her from hurting Dave's feelings _too_ badly. Light-hearted ribbings was part of their interactions, and she doubted they could even _have_ a normal conversation without at least _some_ insults being thrown about, but there was a limit.

"What about that Handmaid?" asked Dave all of a sudden.

"What about her?"

"Well ain't she a _swell doll_?"

"_Ab-so-lute-ly_! She's the _bee's knees_!"

"_Jeepers creepers_, these kiddos aren't getting supernatural powers quick enough, better fling them into some _tricky situations_!"

"_That's the ticket_!"

* * *

><p>Turned out it was not the ticket. Unlike with how the village scenario affected the mutants, how matter how many potentially fatal scenarios the Handmaid put Jade and Dave into, their powers would not awaken. And she <em>knew<em> they had those powers and _knew_ that they would develop soon, but for some reason, whatever it was, it seemed that they were not to come into effect before this fight. Which was not good in the slightest for them.

Apparently stress affected the humans in different way to the mutants. Although the Handmaid guessed that these so called mutants had been sort of engineered for this quick release of their powers. These humans with special abilities were unexpected to say the least, and she would bet her life that the Condesce was fucking relieved to say the least when she found them.

And now, she was going to use them in a fight against their own race.

Really, the best the Handmaid felt she could do in the small timeframe she had was give them some basic survival skills on how to navigate a war zone… if one could even do such a thing.

The day they would be needed came round faster than they could have imagined.

* * *

><p><strong>== Be Dave at the end of the training week<strong>

You are now Dave Strider at the end of the training week

Dave awoke to find the Handmaid looming overhead, and like most normal people, found himself emitting a shrill shriek and covered his chest with the covers instantly. Then, upon realising his face was bare, hid his eyes. Fuck, where were his shades?

"You shouldn't be so ashamed of your caste, kid," she said with a smirk, as if freaking people out at six in the morning was something she really enjoyed doing. Heck, knowing this crazy broad it was entirely possible. Before waking Jade, she decided to pester him further, and leant on the side of the bed, looming dangerously close to him. "Let me guess, your irises have begun to change colour earlier than you thought, huh?"

Ah, there they were. Honestly, if Dave was not so worried that he would break them, he would wear his sunglasses in his sleep.

"Fine, blank me. Just thought I'd share this with you: originally, all humans had red blood," The Handmaid gave him a wink before shaking Jade awake. "Come on. The Condesce needs to brief you on what you're going to do. And I'll warn you now, she's not pleased at all with you."

And she wasn't. The Condesce started their talk with emphasising how _disappointed_ she was with them and their progress, and how she had expected _so much more_ from them, and it was just _rude_, really, not delivering after She had put _so much_ _work_ into looking after them.

She then told them that since they had failed to show any hint of their powers under the Handmaid's careful training regime, they would simply have to be sent out into the battlefield to see if the powers would be unlocked. Because the Handmaid was simply the best there was when it came to training, so if she could not do anything, it was unlikely anyone could.

"Either they will be released, and we can undergo our plans more efficiently, or you will be killed, and we do not have to worry about the opposing team stealing what is ours. It's a win-win situation."

Had he not been under the mental oppression of the Condesce, Dave would have asked what She planned to do if they were captured. Oh well. Perhaps that could be a ticket out, although such a route was unlikely.

Both of them received a small implant that was placed just in the crook of their ear. It would allow the Condesce to send them her orders.

"If you do manage to control your powers, I shall contact you," Then, she took Dave's arm and after rolling up the sleeve, injected what appeared to be a wafer-thin microchip just under the skin of his wrist. With a leer, she spread a fine layer of nano-bot gel on the wound, sealing it almost instantly. "This… well, you will find out if the need arises."

After this, they were sent to a room where they were given outfits similar to the mutants whom had taken them, minus the holes for the horns. It was also here where they each received a gun and a knife, which they strapped to their sides in a near languid fashion, trying to delay the inevitable journey to the war zone.

Sure Dave had fought his bro hundreds if not thousand of times, and gotten some pretty serious wounds from it too, but this was different. This would not just be some petty strife. If this mutant-lady was telling the truth, then outside would be a week's worth of fighting laid out before them. No one was ever ready to face that.

Jade's voice broke the silence. "Hey, Dave?"

He turned. "Yeah?"

"Just… don't die out there, okay? If what this woman is saying is true, then there will be some really bad things out there. Stay close to me, I don't want to lose you. In either meaning of the phrase."

"I don't think there are many things that can stand the combined force of Strider-Harley."

"Heh, that wasn't cheesy at all! And why does your name get to go in front?"

"Natural order of things." shrugged Dave. "Seriously, though. We'll be fine. These weird-ass powers will probably jump in to save the day. Just like in my Japanese animes."

"I'm glad we've accepted the Japanese animes!"

"First step on the road to recovery is acceptance. Or something like that."

They laughed weakly, most of the sound blocked by the helmets they wore before Jade went for the kill with an awkward hug, made all the more awkward by the headgear clunking together.

"Seriously, though! Don't die, Strider. I've got my eye on you."

"Of course I won't die, I need all the fucking time I can get if I want to get taller than you."

"Dream all you like, you'll never beat me!"

"Come on, it's only like an inch difference."

* * *

><p>Surprisingly, it was a beat up, old school bus that carted them to the scene of a fight. The two humans sat at the front, a wall of guards sitting between them and the back of the bus, where the groups of pale mutants were.<p>

They were unnerving to say the least, the way that a few of the team's eyes would linger on the people at the front.

"Out." ordered the guard.

The twelve mutants stood in a loose group beside Jade and Dave. After a brief team talk, one of the mutants walked over to the humans and said, "For your own safety, please could you stay out of our way? Our style of fighting can be fairly reckless, and we would hate to injure someone on our side."

Dave turned to Jade, trying to gauge her expression, then looked back to woman before him.

"Sure." Jade shrugged.

With a nod, the mutants left them, heading towards some sort of tent. With the bus gone, the pair now had no idea what to do. Did they just throw themselves into the distant skirmishes, or were they supposed to report to someone?

"Well, go and talk to that woman with the stripes on her sleeve." The Condesce's voice suddenly leapt into their ears, making the both of them jump.

So without further delay, they set off to the sound of bombs and gunshots.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** (ffff had to make it John's dad's birthday otherwise the timeline would be messed up) SO, most of the four introductions is very heavily based from the original stuff in the comic. Just thought I'd disclaimer that there!

Sorry to everyone who thought this would be about the three years I skipped, hehe (that's next chapter, worry not) :)

Soo, the beta kids were hard, but hopefully I'll get the knack of it. Jade is pretty much my favourite character, so hopefully I've got her right. And please tell me if Rose is ever wrong, as I really want to do her justice.

And how does Hussie manage all these characters aaaah!

Thanks for reading! ^^


	22. One life ends and one resumes

For the first time in decades, the Helmsman lay down.

Actually lay down.

The cool, crisp sheets of the bed kissed his skin, soft against cells used only to the grip of the tentacles, or the harsh nothing of air.

How cruel that he could not feel it.

In the corner of the room stood her Imperious Condescension, staring down at the body. It was a strange situation. Most believed Her to be a heartless hag, which was true really. But few knew She had a couple of weaknesses. After all, She was a living, conscious being, and so she could not be wholly evil. Just as equally, none were completely good.

Call it affection, love, or perhaps simply the need to feel wanted, whatever it was, the Condesce felt this for the Helmsman.

Each day, once her work was complete, the woman would stalk over to her companion and talk with him for half an hour. Well… talk – to – him was perhaps more accurate; the man barely ever replied. And it was on a vast spread of subjects. Whether it was her

Evidently he listened, however, seeing as he had spilt a couple drops of her secrets to the escaped Group Eight. Or so she assumed.

He had always loved the sound of his own voice, so given a chance to speak to someone other the Condesce, doubtless many things had been discussed.

And now three of Her best had escaped, along with that robot-legged brat, and… and…

Early in the hours of the night, the Helmsman had finally passed on.

And the Condesce hadn't a clue what she was to do now.

It was not as if he had not been in a vegetative state for the past week, so really She should have accepted his death already. But that did not make it any easier.

Pity. She could honestly say she had felt it towards the man, which was twisted enough considering She used him as a living battery, but also taking into account the large step between their blood caste… it would never have happened anyway. Fucking Lima Syndrome.

This death would makes things less complicated. Which would be nice… even if they did have to use a generator for their power, which was far below par the technology She was used to and kept on blanking out at their energy usage.

The Helmsman had given his life to help Group Eight escape! Or more accurately; to help his grandson and the Handmaid escape.

Predictable.

She should have locked the door.

Then the Serket girl would not have wandered into the room and had a chance to plot with him.

That lousy goddamn stupid door.

And, obviously, it would have been the Handmaid, wouldn't it?

It was always about her with him.

Always.

_Always_.

**Always**.

Even though she had never returned his feelings, he'd loved her. Even though she told him they could still be friends, and he had _agreed_, he'd loved her. Even though she went to the trouble of sleeping with that blue-blood just to try and force him to move on… he had loved her.

Despite all these things, he had given up his life for her in creating the massive surge of power that had broken their system for a short time.

Ha! Romance. Life before the landings had been so much simpler.

She then remembered the man she was thinking of was dead, and a strange feeling wormed its way deep inside her core. A restless shuffle in the centre of her ribcage that left her feeling tired and wrong. Just wrong. Very wrong.

Dead red and blue eyes stared up at the ceiling. Too glassy to look real.

The Condesce drew the sheet over the Psiioniic's face and left the room.

* * *

><p><strong>== Okay, now for the love of god <em>tell us about the three year gap<em>****!**

Well alright. Who shall we be first?

**== Vriska, I guess**

You are now Vriska Serket, two days after your fight with Terezi… which you lost…

Why… where was everyone?

Why had no one turned up? Why had no one come to wish her a 'get well soon'?

Other than the nurse coming in every so often to check how her legs were doing, Vriska had been left in complete isolation for the past few days.

At least when she had been training with the Condesce she had not been lonely. She was not sure how much more of this she could stand.

There was nothing to do. Nothing to watch, read, or even fiddle with save for the blankets covering her, and she was bored stiff.

Still, though, the Brit had managed to catch up on a whole load of sleep.

But even so, she had asked the nurse if any of the others would be able to visit, and apparently it was allowed in their breaks. Yet no one appeared. Gee wiz, thanks everyone.

The robotics of her arm made no sound as the polished metal slid over itself. That had been the first thing she did once Vriska had found herself with nothing to do. A number of cerulean stains had encrusted themselves into the small gaps between the parts, and so she had spent a good few hours cleaning it to the best of her ability.

Equius was truly a good mechanic. Good, putting it lightly.

Not that she'd ever tell him that… well maybe. Maybe if he came to check on her… but as if that was going to happen. He was probably pissed off with her too at the murder of Aradia.

Ugh!

No.

Vriska was _not_ going to let her mind settle on those that she had killed (and the count was high).

She had done what she had to survive. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hell, if she was a spider or whatever, this kind of behaviour would be completely acceptable, normal even. Female spiders often ate their mates, and then, in turn sacrificed themselves to their offspring so that they may have a better chance in life.

Perhaps… that's what would have happened to Spidermum had Vriska had not stepped up to take the weight of her mother's employment onto her shoulders.

It was tough work. Not so much physically, but mentally. Mentally, it was exhausting and the cerulean-blooded girl had lost countless nights awake and shaking at the deeds she had committed.

But she had to survive, and she did not want to lose her mother, so sacrifices had to made. Only, really, they were not sacrifices on her life so to speak.

And sometimes, they didn't even die. Not when they behaved and sat still.

The stupid wriggled and thrashed, and the needles would stab and jerk and then the blood would tumble out, wasted all over the floor.

The weak died and the strong survived.

Natural selection.

However, enough dwelling on that area of her past. It was at that moment that someone entered the room.

Not a nurse either, but perhaps one of the last people she expected.

Eridan Ampora.

So naturally, she demanded why the hell he was coming in, and he replied in a suitably irritated manner. And when he threatened to beat her up, she played the 'surely you wouldn't beat up someone in hospital who was can't even move their legs'.

The highblood simply called it justice and sneered at her. So as soon as he got close enough she punched him in the gut with her metal arm. In retaliation, he smacked her around the face.

"Still a bitch, huh?"

"What, you think that'd magically disappear somehow?"

"I wwas countin' on the fact that it wwouldn't."

"Well that's lucky then."

Vriska still thought he was a stuck up prick, but hey, if he was going to be the only person to visit her in this shithole then she may as well try to lure him back. Just so she would not get so bored, of course.

Yet the encounter ended with Vriska's back pressed hard against the ground as she shrieked in pain. Their verbal sparring had quickly descended into Eridan dragging Vriska from the bed and attempting to beat some sense into her, yet the sudden jerky movements made the already weak bonds between the newly healed muscle rip open.

He'd only wanted to rough her up a bit, not make her scream in pain on the floor, so he flapped about her like a panicked mother hen until the doctor came in.

"She'll have to get her wounds sewn up again." Dr Kajeor sighed, then sent the boy to Doc Scratch without a further word.

Her muscles were fixed back together, and Eridan did not visit for another few days. But, of course, he returned.

And again, her muscles got bust as she attempted to bunch them up and kick him in the groin.

And again.

And again.

And again.

It was after five months of this that the doctors finally took a stand and banned the boy from entering, and another five months of careful work to get her legs back into order. Yet what with the depth of the cut Terezi had dealt, and all of the reopening of wounds and ripping of the stitches, Vriska's leg muscles were damaged fairly permanently.

The Condesce, in her 'kindness' had given Vriska a dose of permanent nanobots: the kind that would remain in her body for as long as she lived, unlike most that would decompose after a matter of days. However the model she had given the Brit were programmed to be slow acting, a reminder from the fishbitch that she was completely at the older woman's mercy.

When the girl was finally released she was sitting comfortably at the end of her fifteenth year, although the weight of her experiences hung heavy from her shoulders, making her feel much older.

After another month of sparring with Eridan, following pinning him to the ground, Vriska found herself passionately kissing the boy as he yanked at her hair and caressed her spine, as she pressed her fingers down hard onto his neck.

They soon found that this was not an irregular occurrence in their spars. There was… there was just something so _infuriating_ about that pompous asshole that Vriska found herself wanting to teach him a lesson each time she saw him. She wanted to show him that hey, look, someone of a lower caste to you that can kick your butt to the ground daily.

But while – and don't you get her wrong – she certainly hated his guts… she could not deny that he was very attractive. Especially when he stripped to the waist in their sparring sessions, or got that characteristic grimace etched onto his face when she outmanoeuvred him. And there was something immensely satisfying when she got him to make that little mew at the back of his throat. The very thought of it sent a strange brush of _something_ down her spine. He was at his most vulnerable and it was because of _her_. Bet your stupid Feferi never made you make a sound like that.

Though those ridiculously chunky glasses that just fucking screamed hipster looked hideous, and she often grabbed them from him and chucked them across the room. Yet he'd more often than not return the favour and they'd both end up groping about the floor (and occasionally their partner) to find them.

Eridan was the only one from the original twelve to ever visit her over those three years, and as such she both resented him and needed him at the same time for it.

Both took out their frustrations on each other. Eridan, his pining for Feferi while she and Sollux got friendly, and Vriska, her anger at being abandoned. Sometimes it was released by horrid, violent fights, and other times by pressing their bodies close in the dark intimacy of the night, fingernails leaving half moons dotted about the other's back.

As time went on he began to find himself feeling an immense pity for this lonely girl who hid her true emotions behind a wall of cold wall of steel indifference. There was more to her than she let on, but no matter how hard he tried, she never let those walls down. It was clear to him that Vriska would feel nothing more for Eridan really than an ashen hate.

Vriska trained with the Condesce through the day, and Eridan joined her most nights. The tyrian-blood realised that complete social depravation was not good for a teenager, and so allowed him to remain with her.

The Condesce's tutoring was very different to the Handmaid's, and relied far more heavily on the use of manipulation of the foe and being ruthless in terms of how to treat other humans.

Ordinary people, the Condesce explained one day, are nothing more than mere tools to aid you. Their minds are weak and easily malleable. Both the mind and the body had to be weapons for what the Condesce had in mind for her.

The cerulean-blood was to collect information and the like for the woman. A task which often involved seducing, conning, bribing (not that the bribe was ever delivered) or, when it was necessary, forcing information out of the targets with violence. She preferred that route really; it's what she was, well, used to.

And then, a month after her seventeenth birthday, she was sent to recover information from a ball being held by the president of the US. Minimum violence. Target an employee and manipulate them into opening the doors.

It was there where she met a pair of people that she had not seen in three years.

Tavros Nitram and Sollux Captor.

**== What? She didn't meet them once in those three years? I guess that explains the cold attitudes…**

If you wish to be another character from the time skip before we move on, you must enter a name

**== ARG be Aradia**

You are now Aradia Megido a couple of months after the second round of fights

Aradia had noticed something, something that while not terribly interesting to her, was important. Nepeta had also noticed, as had Doc Scratch.

This matter was apparently significant enough for the Doc to send them to the Condesce, who got up from the desk and – after pulling on a pair of thin, latex gloves – instructed the boy to strip to his underwear.

"How… unusual. You appear to be wasting away," commented the woman. "You've been eating all of your meals, I take it?"

"Yes, ma'am." he choked out as she walked two fingers up the prominent ridge of his spine.

"How odd. Darkleer never had such an issue. I hope your physical strength has not deteriorated along with this. Lift me," She ordered, and Equius felt a flush rise up onto his face. An actual highblood was ordering him about, and not a mere purple-blood, but actual royalty, just as it was supposed to be. Oh no, he could feel himself beginning to sweat again. "Are you finding yourself aroused by such an idea? Ugh, teenagers. Fine, lift the desk instead. I do not wish to get your filthy blue sweat on me anyway. But _carefully_. It is vintage from twenty-ten."

It was not a particularly large or heavy desk, and even Sollux would likely have been able to lift it somewhat, yet Equius could not at all. Something was very, very wrong.

His STRENGTH, the very thing that defined who he was had left him.

Within a matter of days, the remains of Group Seven were sent off to a small prosthetics shop in Dubai, as apparently neither of them were of much use to the Condesce. The intense heat made Equius sweat even more than usual, so he rarely left the shop, instead taking refuge in the air-conditioned paradise of his workroom.

Apparently, many of the people that came to the mechanics knew of Nepeta's parents, which had been both nice and upsetting at the same time for the girl.

Their horns had proved to be a massive problem. While the grey skin was relatively easily concealed with a thick foundation, the sensitive organs projecting from their skulls were far harder to hide.

Equius's could be hidden under a tall top hat, which made him lucky in a sense to have a pair of horns that shot straight upwards.

Nepeta took to sewing an extension onto her blue hat that made the horns seem like cat ears. It was a sly thing to do, she decided.

And so in the end they turned out looking like a pair of eccentric young people. Oh well. Better than looking like mutants and being killed.

Aradia was still floating about Equius's body, and did very little other than making the odd comment about her host's day. His chances to speak to her grew, though, without the Condesce's hovering.

Every now and then, he would go for long walks in the desert nearby. Remains of the old city sometimes peeked out from under the sand, and Equius often attempted to salvage something from them. Whether that was Aradia's influence or not had yet to be decided, yet these walks did give him ample opportunity to talk to her without coming off as incredibly odd. That probably helped hold off the insanity that would have gripped his mind otherwise.

For the years that Vriska trained and manipulated and hate-flirted, Equius created robotic limbs. It felt disgusting, at first, to be helping all these… _low bloods_. But then as time when on it felt good. Or at the very least, it was nice to see his designs having such a positive effect for people.

After the first two years, thinking back to Vriska and Tavros's limbs made him near shudder with embarrassment. Their designs were so _crude_! So inefficient. So ugly.

He soon learnt how to improve upon the air-conditioners people used as well, and quickly made a name for himself.

Nepeta, on the other hand, had volunteered into projects to help the clear rubble from the destroyed buildings dotted about. And when she was not doing this, she hunted the strange game located in the desert and earned decent amounts of money from it. Enough so to purchase one of the giant desert cats that roamed the dunes at night. Well, a kitten of one anyway, but it soon grew to be big enough to ride upon.

Then, finally, after three years in this desert city, we get to the present day for our story.

The soul of someone who had once been a friendly French-Korean girl was currently over her host's shoulder, watching as he worked on his mysterious project. A project which he was being very secretive about.

A while ago, Aradia had found a previously unknown part her mind unfolding open, revealing a bounty of information. In this information was a strange bundle of equations and materials that meant nothing to her, but when offered to Equius made a fresh sheen of sweat glisten over his skin.

She guessed that now would be a nice time to be able to read minds… although she was not particularly fussed about finding out. The soul was perfectly okay with not knowing. After having another spirit trapped inside his body twenty-four seven, Equius had the right to a little privacy.

The money he made from the prosthetics were more than enough to pay for the finest materials.

Titanium alloys.

Carbon fibres.

Silicon.

So far it was going well, although he was leaving certain parts of this project until the very end.

For months he had put blood sweat and tears into this piece of work, and now, it was the final touches. He had requested that Aradia tried to avert her eyes for this, to keep it a surprise. She replied that she was okay with that.

This was it.

He'd managed to craft her face from the images he got of her ghostly form. It was good, considering he had never been able to ask her to model, but then he had always had an eye for the arts.

Equius had half-heartedly thought of asking Nepeta to help, as she was by far the better artist but… there was no good way to explain why he was making a life-sized robot of their dead team mate without explaining the whole 'she's fixed her soul to mine' situation. And quite frankly, how in Dickens name do you explain that without ending up in an asylum?

No.

It was best that Equius did this alone, at least until Aradia could inhabit the body and she could do the talking. After all, Equius had never been good with words.

Dipping the brush into a sturdy, blue paint, Equius gave her lips the final coat of 'lipstick' they needed.

Done.

It was perfect.

No, wait.

_She_ was perfect.

Narrow fingers brushed down the white silicon of her face, pausing at her lips. Oh gods, the texture was perfect, she was perfect. Veins pumping with perfect, blue blood. A perfect body with curves in all of the right places. Perfect, beautiful horns that arched like a ram's.

Speaking of bodies; a body that would not break in his grip…

Equius needed a towel.

Badly.

'_Can I look yet_?' A hollow voice seemed to chime from inside his skull.

"I think… yes."

A figure then materialised beside him, strange and completely alien to the Aradia that he had known when she was alive. Her whole body was quite literally the colour of freshly lain snow, skin, clothes and eyes included, with only the red slash of her lipstick and maroon hair breaking up her form. But that was not the strangest part. No. That was how, in this form, replacing her horns were two strange protrusions that looked almost like… frogs eyes? And once her body reached the waist, rather than a pair of legs she seemed to have acquired a ghost-like tail.

Perhaps that was fitting, seeing as she was just a spirit now.

'_It looks nice_.' commented Aradia, as one might comment on the décor of an acquaintances house – said more out of politeness than any real appreciation.

"Yes," Equius whispered, just in case the prosthetics surgery still had someone inside. "It is perfect in every way."

'_Ribbit_.' she exclaimed.

"Do you," he said, more to himself than her. "have a clean towel anywhere?"

Then, without warning, the ghost charged towards the robot resting on the desk, and a bright flash filled the room.

Once the light had dimmed, Equius brought his arm down from before his eyes and saw exactly what he had been hoping for.

Where the robot had previously been lying down, she was now sat up, long legs dangling off the side of the table as she examined her fingers in great detail. She simply flexed them back and forth for a while, watching them move and feeling the air brush over her synthetic skin, before drumming them on the table a few times, relishing how she could interact with her environment once more. A small, content smile sat on her lips.

He had allowed her a few minutes to get settled into the body. Now he needed to see if a certain, uh, test had worked. Interrupting her thoughts, he said, "I think it suits you. Much more so than the form of a levitating ghostly amphibian."

No reply, or even an acknowledgement of his words.

Equius cleared his throat, then added, "How does it feel?"

"It feels… different!"

It was strange hearing her voice come from anywhere other than his head.

"Ok. But I mean, do you feel anything else?"

"Uh…" She fixed her vivid red gaze upon him, eyebrows very lightly drawn together.

"Any sort of… stirring sensations?"

"Stirring?"

"Yes. Such as, sensations which may be stirred by flowing blood and a beating heart?" Was there any way to put it so that the girl would not be alarmed? He thought it unlikely, but he would try nonetheless… even though this was a sick and disgusting affliction he had.

But she was a blue-blood now, he had made sure of it. There was nothing wrong with his… his feelings at all now. Right?

There was a slight narrowing at the far corner of her eyes: worry? "I'm not sure…"

Okay, he would have to go in for the kill.

"Can you detect anything within you might describe as… smouldering passion," Then, as the narrowing of her eyes began to grow suspicious, quickly added, "I mean, just out of curiosity-"

"Wait," she interrupted. "What _is_ that…"

He could barely keep the anticipation from his voice. "What's what?"

"This feeling… oh god. _Oh my god what did you do_!" she shrieked, a strange metallic screech joining the human sounds. "Did you program this robot to have romantic feelings for you? _ROMANTIC FEELINGS_?"

Busted.

"Hrrrk…"

"_ANSWER ME BLUE BLOOD SCUM_."

The harsh, screeching sounds from the chest area of her body grew louder and more painful to hear as her shouting increased in volume.

"I, yes, uh… it's a chip in your heart. Is that not okay?"

His feigned innocence was met with a stony silence for a few seconds, before she demanded in a low, monotone voice, "Get it out."

"Urrk. I guess I can… uninstall it if you would just-" As he reached towards her chest, she lashed out with her arm, whacking him back.

"_Get it out_!"

"Sorry, I'll, hrrrrrrk."

"_GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT_!"

Like a computer with a virus, her message was repeated over and over and over, the basic sentence never changing in pitch or tone. A broken record.

But Equius was not thinking about this at all. The only thing he had on his mind was the dangerous twitching to her hands and head as she ground her shark-like teeth together. How the words were beginning to run into each other as she splurged out more sentences. That was never a good thing.

Then he could only watch on in horror as the robot plunged her hand into her chest and ripped out the synthetic heart, painting an arc through the air with the bright blue blood that spurted. His blood.

And as if, as if _that were not enough_, she pounded the heart violently on the desk, crushing it, shattering it, causing little shards of metal and blood to fly about the room. He was pretty certain he was screaming with her at this point, but he could not be certain.

But it was not over.

The now heartless girl stalked over to where he was kneeling on the floor, grabbed him by the front of his vest and hoisted his weak frame up.

_Smack_! _Smack_! _Smack_!

Her metal hand whacked him around the face, knocking it from facing one direction to the other in her fury.

(Was it wrong of him to feel oddly… aroused by this? By how despite his best efforts he could not escape her grip, even if he had wanted to?)

She stopped briefly to scream obscenities in his face, and then…

And then… grabbed the sides of his now battered and bruised head, and kissed him with as much gusto as a robot who just tore out her heart could, her other hand snaking about his waist so that he could not escape this violent display of affection.

That was the scene Nepeta was greeted to when she went downstairs to check what the strange noises were.

Apparently the surgery was not empty after all.

**== Okay, now be Karkat**

Whoa! Greedy. You will have to wait before you get the rest of the time skip

* * *

><p><strong>== Be someone escaping<strong>

We have had quite enough of Vriska and the Handmaid's point of view, as well as Tavros's recently so you are now Sollux Captor

It was strange, in his opinion, how quickly Sollux had settled down into a breathing pattern as he ran. Unlike his team mates, the yellow-blood did not use a weapon that required jumping about much, and as such his stamina was much lower than that of theirs.

"There should be an opening to the tunnel system around here… somewhere." Vriska announced, swiping at the coating of sweat on her forehead with the back of a hand. The prolonged exercise combined with the intense sunlight and heat had made them as sweaty as Equius on a bad day. It was disgusting and Sollux found himself pitying the poor guy a little- no wait, not _pity_ pity, just normal 'oh I feel bad for the guy' pity. Pity was the wrong word really…

A couple of years prior, the mutants had been given a brief introduction to the shenanigans that were 'quadrants'.

**== Reminisce**

No fucking way.

Sollux decided against thinking back upon that hideously awkward couple of hours, and instead focused on more important matters. Such as escaping from this hellhole, and the stitch forming in his side.

Shit, the rest of Group Eight were a good few metres ahead of him. Damn it. The repercursions of being a geek that did little exercise.

A shot suddenly buried itself into the sand behind him, throwing an arc of the fine particles into the air.

Great; they were shooting now.

Then, as if to accompany the spray of sand, a huge gust of energy slammed into the ground before him, knocking up a wave of sand-infused air.

Sollux turned towards where the retainment organisation had been before the sand, just for a moment, to see if he could tell where the people with guns were. Yet when he turned his eyes back forwards, Group Eight were nowhere to be seen.

"Tavroth? HM?" he called, swinging his gaze about himself in a wild attempt to find them. "Vrithka? Where are you?"

A strange, invisible grip then plucked him up off the ground and yanked him towards a hole in the sand, pulling him down it a good dozen metres before the light was sealed off. Clanging filled the air as the door to the catacombs were shut; the Handmaid's doing no doubt.

"Do we, uh, leave it to allow others to escape, or, should we seal it, so Doc Scratch and, uhh, his people don't find us?" Even in the pitch black, it was easy to recognise Tavros's meandering voice.

"Seal it. They'll just have to find another way in." With that English accent, the owner of that voice had to be Vriska. "Sollux, will you do us the honours?"

Ah. She wanted to seal up the opening. Well, that was not going to work well for any of them…

"If we do that it'll immediately give away which tunnel we went down." replied Sollux.

"Yeah, but they won't be able to get down it, will they? Besides, there can't be much more than one opening in this place." Vriska argued. "It'll be safer this way. Right, Tavros?"

"Don't, uh, don't bring me into this."

The invisible hand then grabbed the three younger mutants again, and pulled them so they were facing the Handmaid, her face now lit. The glow given off naturally by Sollux's eyes cast a red and blue light onto their features. "They'll be checking all of the tunnels in the area regardless, and given that they cannot sense us underground, it would be smarter not to give them any clues."

So it was decided then. They would not seal it.

The tunnels were significantly colder than the desert above, a fact that was not helped by how their path was only taking them further down. They made sure to not simply walk forwards, as it's what the retainment organisation would expect from a bunch of people escaping: to blindly run forwards in an attempt to get as far away as possible.

No.

Instead, they took the first branch off they could find, then when they found another turn off, went along that tunnel.

Yet since they were relying completely on the glow given off by Sollux's eyes, several errors were made, such as walking into walls, and knocking into the person before you.

It was a good four hours of this light jogging before they dared to stop for a break. Completely out of breath, the four of them sat with their backs against the wall, panting wildly. From one of her many pockets, the Handmaid produced some sort of chewy sweets (slightly squashed, so she'd probably sat on them), followed by a stick of incense.

"Won't they be able to smell that?" Vriska asked around the sweet.

"The Condesce has no sense of smell, aboveground anyway, so she forgets about such a resource and hasn't invested in it at all. She's dumb like that," The Handmaid held the stick before Sollux, and using his optic-blasts, he lit it. "So no, they will not find us based off incense. And just in case they do have those kinda tracking devices, then I've been scattering lit incense around as we ran."

Vriska coughed, wafting the heavily scented cloud from her face the best she could with her hand.

"Great. So you've basically left them a trail to follow us with?"

Sollux found himself frowning. He didn't like to admit it, but Vriska _did_ have a point. It was unlike HM to do something so careless…

"You really think I'm such an idiot?" The Handmaid settled into a cross-legged position before the joss stick. "Lasers, baby, come over here. You're stressed again, you need to relax."

The Handmaid turned back to Vriska as Sollux settled down opposite the woman. "I was flinging them far down the branched off paths we didn't take. No need to get your panties into a twist."

"… and I guess I'm not stressed enough to merit a sit before the incense?" Vriska said with sarcasm imbued speech.

The Handmaid's lips quirked into a rare smirk.

"I guess not."

For a while longer they sat, and with Sollux's eyes closed, the only light they had was from the glowing tip of joss stick.

Running the her tongue heavily along the tips of her thumb and forefinger, the Handmaid then pinched the end of the stick, extinguishing it and plunging them into thick darkness.

The incense and it's holder when back into her pockets.

"Come on, we need to put more distance between us and the fishbitch." Vriska decided as she stood.

"Oh really? What got you to that concluthion?"

Vriska pursed her lips, considered pummelling him, then decided the geek was not worth her time and simply continued down their path, using her fingers to work out where the walls were until Sollux cast some light across the tunnel.

Somewhere in those next half dozen hours of trudging, the Handmaid asked Vriska if she could see at all. The Brit was not sure what answer she was looking for, so brushed it off with a 'what, is night vision something we get now?' which ended the conversation as soon as it had begun.

The first night they spent in the tunnel was quite possibly the worst. It was freezing and dark, at least one of them was a murderer who, potentially, could kill them all in their sleep, and they were all on the run from an organisation that had kidnapped then conditioned them from the tender age of thirteen.

But hey, they were thankful, at least, that it was not damp as well.

Due to the temperature, it was inevitable that they would have to huddle together, reminiscent of the time they spent in the village.

Now a strange added side effect of the differences in blood-colour was how the higher up you got in the hemospectrum, the less warm-blooded you got, although not even the rare tyrian-bloods could be considered properly cold blooded. But that was beside the point.

So while Vriska was very unlikely to get ill and die from this cold temperature, or even have it affect her in a negative and permanent fashion, it would hinder her in if they needed to make a quick dash. It was a commonly known fact that if you wanted to assassinate a high-blood, you got them as cold as possible then went in for the kill… quite literally. The cold made them sluggish and slow-witted until they warmed up.

Ideally, they would have huddled together before they went to sleep, but… there was the fact that both Tavros and Sollux hated Vriska, so that was never going to work; that the Handmaid was not a particularly touchy-feely woman and so decided to sleep on her own; and that Tavros and Sollux, while friends, were not at the level where they could simply snuggle up to one another without it being incredibly awkward. So in the end, they all fell asleep at least a metre apart from one another.

**== Vriska, wake up**

You are now Vriska Serket and, in fact, you were already awake

As the low-bloods slept for a while longer, Vriska sat with one leg stretched before her, her fingers massaging the muscles on her calves until they felt less stiff. She then commenced this same process on her other leg.

Tucked away in her pocket was a tube of salve that helped spur on the lethargic nanobots. Ordinarily, she would apply this to her legs to speed up the loosening of her sore muscles, but she could not risk the rest of her group realising that Terezi's actions had affected her so badly. Besides, she couldn't see a thing.

As if she had not been punished enough for the murder of Aradia Megido.

There. Her legs were ready and stretched. Just in time too, as the rest of Group Eight were waking, all groggy and disorientated.

Another sweet each from the Handmaid, and then back to trudging about in the dark.

It was cold and Vriska hated it. At one point, she was unfortunate enough to find her hand brush past Tavros's, and had she been just a little more desperate, may well have grabbed him just to leech some of his body heat.

Lousy goddamn stupid lowbloods with their quick metabolisms and warm skin.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Sorry this is so late, also sorry my replies are late as well! It's been a bit hectic recently, so I haven't had much time to write or reply.

Also, sorry for the break up in flashbacks, I'll go into what happened with Groups nine and ten next time! And yeah, erivris blackrom

So yeah, I try not to write any of the characters as 'evil' or 'good', because really, no one is completely evil or completely good. But some of my prejudices will probably still leak into my writing, so if you think I'm being too hard on a character, or visa versa, just point it out please

That's it really?

Thanks for reading! ^^


	23. Alternate-Dave

**== Can we be Karkat _now_****?**

You are now Karkat Vantas, except you are not _now_ him, rather you are the Karkat of three years ago. A Karkat that just witnessed the brutal murder of Aradia Megido.

To be entirely honest, Karkat had no intension of hunting down Vriska. Nope. No thanks. None of that please.

That spiderbitch, she could control minds or something, right? That was something that the mutant wanted _none_ of. His mind was private thanks… there were certain secrets that he did not want her to see.

At first he was furious with her. Not because he had been particularly close to Aradia, but because Vriska had simply taken it upon herself to kill someone out of the blue. Who did that?

It turned out that he had little to worry about on the Vriska front though, as she was moved to a different section of the facility with her timetables flipped. Rumour was that this had been done to prevent harm to the girl, as she was too precious to the Condesce to risk loosing… but being precious to such a woman was hardly a good thing really.

But it had to be said that Karkat respected the Condesce greatly. Sure, she was a homicidal fish lady with highly questionable morals and even more questionable motives, but wow, look at what she had managed to achieve! It was a sign of great leadership at the very least.

But Karkat had more important things to be doing than pondering how good the water-bitch's leadership skills were; such as not getting sliced even _once_ by Terezi's wicked blade.

The Condesce may have a use for his mutant blood, but he doubted his team mates would be so forgiving. In fact, he could go so far as to say that once the Condesce's use for him was through, he would be culled.

Positive thinking!

Fuck off.

The three years had been hell for Karkat… in some ways.

Mainly, he'd had to train and train and train with his stupidly picked sickle until he could duel Terezi for dozens of minutes on end, a lot harder than it sounded; could strike to kill, fatally injure, wound or stun an attacker; and could practically fight blindfolded (okay that was an exaggeration, but still). Much to his pleasure, this had meant he had almost lost his puppy fat now, _almost_ being the keyword as his tummy was still just a little podgy. But fuck, now was not the time to be angsting over appearances.

Since Terezi had technically gotten first place in the fights the Condesce had staged, their group were often used for the recovery of important people and items, with the blind-girl as team leader. It was fun and kept their minds stimulated, a good sight better than Group Ten, who were stuck inside the facility all day.

Although… it did result in injuries. Of course, most were quickly healed, leaving barely a trace, but now and then the wounds were more serious, but really he was lucky to even be alive considering his mutation.

In most cases a mutant would live until sixteen at most, for it was then when the original colour of a child's eyes would have their blood colour seep into them.

In a way, Karkat had cheated death, if only for a little while.

As for Terezi, she had only grown more cunning and swift as time went on. She was able to route out entire situations in her mind based off a single decision, and more often than not they were correct. All in all, Terezi was a handy woman to have as team leader.

One thing that had changed for the worse, though, was the size of Gamzee. Initially, they had simply thought he was getting chubby, and he was a while, but then he shot up and up and up until he was a good eight foot tall, even higher up than the Handmaid.

The Condesce often had uses for him that the other two were not told of.

And honestly, they would not want to know.

* * *

><p><strong>== How is the fish princess doing?<strong>

You are now Feferi Peixes

Placing second last in the fights had proved to have more of an effect than they had initially imagined. But unlike Group Seven, who were deported, Group Ten had to stay inside the building. All day every day. In fact, not one of them had left the retainment organisation in the three years that had passed.

It was horrid. The three of them were near insane at the lack of contact with the world, and the best they had was the occasional trips to the training room with a skylight.

Even the three themselves had no idea what they were supposed to be doing. They had been split into Kanaya, then Eridan and Feferi, with the two sub-groups doing different activities, but still working as an overall group.

Most days, it involved a lot of diving in the Condesce's pool.

It could easily be over two miles wide at the surface, and as for the depth, Feferi had swam what felt like miles down without reaching the bottom. Perhaps it was made on a fracture in the earth's crust… although she did not know of any fault lines in New Mexico. An underwater lake? Maybe.

There were submerged sections of cities in the water, meaning that the two mutants with gills had swum through supermarkets and skyscrapers many a time. Abandoned trolleys with packaged goods still in and semi-decomposed children's toys were found in many places, but there were no people. If this was a city that just sunk without warning, then the Condesce must have removed all the bodies.

Not that Group Ten knew of the Condesce. Like most of the twelve, they still believed that Doc Scratch was the head honcho.

Kanaya would wait at the surface, somewhere above them in a boat and send them instructions for what they were to find that day. It could be anything from a spoon with certain letters carved onto it, to a decayed recipe book. The item's location would show up on the radar, and after dropping them off in the general area, the divers would be guided over to it via microphones.

It kept them occupied, sure. But they still longed for fresh air, to feel the wind across their faces, and the tingle of sunlight on their skin.

It was said to them constantly, though, that their jobs would become incredibly valuable in time, more so than those of Group Eight or Nine's. That kept them going at least.

It was known to all of the remaining twelve that Eridan and Vriska had a thing going. Eridan could not keep his mouth shut about it.

After the infamous talk on quadrants, they narrowed it down to being a kismesis, and since it was the first of the group, and the first that any of the mutants had ever seen, gossip was something they all enjoyed. Karkat and Eridan were known to discuss the relationship at great lengths since they were both into such gossip.

It was also suggested amongst hastily halted whispers, that the reason Eridan was so angry all the time, was because Feferi had been neglecting her attention on him for Sollux.

And _that_ was a completely different kettle of fish.

Something about the geek seemed to bring out the best in her. Although he had his fair share of doom and gloom moments, his general demeanour was of the teasing variety, and after putting up with Eridan's near suffocating cloud of pessimism it was like fresh air to her lungs. Or rather the next best thing since she still could not go outside.

And though she would deny it, it had to be said that whenever he came back from one of his trips to the outside world, that outdoors-y smell that clung to his body was a fucking massive turn on.

It started out with innocent brushing of fingers as they sat beside each other at meals, which soon led to holding hands, hidden under the safety of the table. And then, when she had gathered enough confidence that he returned her feelings, a hilariously awkward first kiss when all the other mutants in their block had crawled into the pods. Their noses knocked and his fingers accidentally jabbed into her gills, effectively cutting it off because _ow_. But Feferi regretted nothing.

They still had yet to make their relationship public, however.

And then there was Kanaya. Her crush on Vriska had been abruptly terminated at her murder of Aradia, but realising the conversation Vriska had had with her a bit before the death was on whether she should kill the girl or not, a strange feeling filled her. While Kanaya was certainly disgusted at the Brit's actions… at the same time she deeply pitied the girl for doing what she thought had been the right thing to do.

Ugh, emotions.

But if anything, the frustration created by this initially helped her channel some aggression into her fighting. Over time, her crush on the Serket girl lessened and her fighting improved.

She was now a weapon.

A few days ago, there had been a black out that lasted a good ten minutes, never a good thing when almost all of the building is subterranean. Only the emergency light strips were working, their chemical glow giving off an eerie light to the facility.

All that remained of the original twelve were instructed to return to the dining hall, and the pickings were fairly meagre. The whole of Feferi's group were there, as well as Terezi's and then… that was it?

Nepeta's group had left over a year ago, not long after Aradia had died. It had been so strange… Equius had simply begun to wither, almost. Maybe he had gotten better, maybe not. They had not seen the two of them since, and only Terezi had seemed upset by it, by the loss of Nepeta; the two of them had become close friends through role-play over messenger.

Vriska, well, it was expected that she was not there. But where were Sollux and Tavros? And the Handmaid for that matter… They waited for a further five minutes in case the three of them had gotten lost in the darkness, but they never came.

The remaining six were registered, then ordered to go to their sleeping pods for containment, just in case a plan had been formed between them.

The next day they still had not returned. Nor the next.

"So Tavros didn't mention anyfin?"

"No, sorry. I take it Sollux didn't either?" said Kanaya, accompanied with a shake of her head.

Feferi looked irritated at the question.

"I just… I thought if he was planning to take off, he would tell me at least. But I guess not?" the girl frowned at the wall opposite. "Unless this is some weird stunt being pulled by Doc Scratch…"

Kanaya said nothing. It was unlikely that the disappearance of Sollux, Tavros and the Handmaid was a ruse, but it was equally unlikely that they had managed to escape, if not more so.

"Wris has taken off somewwhere." snarled Eridan as he sat beside Feferi. "Fuckin' bitch."

Shooting a quick, worried glance at Feferi, Kanaya said, "I'm sure they will be back soon."

They were not.

CA: i thought wwe had somethin you know

CA: like shed tell me if she wwas gonna go wwaltzin off

CA: its not fuckin fair

CC: glub glub glub 38(

CA: come on be serious for once

CC: I AM being serious!

CA: oh

CA: wwell its kinda hard to tell wwhen youre throwin those glubs evverywwhere

CC: 38/

CC: Well I'm sorry MIST-ER but you s)(ould be used to it now.

CA: ugh sorry fef im just annoyed

CA: like i dunno

CA: shes been startin to ignore me more for a wwhile noww actually

CC: O)( Eridan… 38(

CC: Well clearly s)(e )(ad -EV-EN MOR-E PROBL-EMS t)(an we realised at first!

CC: Anyone would be lucky to )(ave a kismesis as diabolical as you, especially T)(AT one.

CA: ehhh

CA: wwell okay thanks for sayin so

CA: but like i still don't get wwhy shed just leavve like that

CA: thats not howw kismesis wwork like i knoww wwere supposed to antagonise each other an stuff

CA: but at the end of the day i dunno like wwere still supposed to be there you knoww

CC: Um?

CC: )(onestly, I wouldn't really know.

CC: I've never really felt t)(at way for anyone… maybe I'm too )(uman still! 38p

CA: shrug

CC: But I mean, your feelings for )(er really ran dark?

CA: it doesnt evven matter

CA: like i said shes been startin to ignore me for a wwhile

Feferi huffed at the ceiling. It was almost as if he did not even want to see the bright side of things. Fucking drama queen. Fair enough, Vriska had been a downright bitch to him, but really, she did that to almost everyone, and well, that's what kismesis were for weren't they? Ugh, okay fine, she did not have a clue, but she would prefer it if he did not treat her like she was dumb.

A small smirk appeared on her face as she considered another option. This ought to lighten him up a bit!

CC: But didn't you, um, visit )(er every nig)(t?

CA: oh god

CC: To me t)(at sounds like you maybe )(ad… )(m…

CC: Somefin R-EDD-ER MAYB-E?

CA: no

CC: 38)

CA: no stop that

CC 3 8) 38) 3 8)

CA: wwhats that evven supposed to be

CC: Eyebrow waggling, I )(ad to improvise.

CA: ug)( i don't evven know

CA: like sometimes maybe i did feel kinda redder for her maybe

Jackpot.

CC: But?

CA: but what

CC: I've known you for ages, Eridan. I can tell w)(en t)(ere's more to your story!

CA: oh god

CC: So w)(o IS IT t)(at you're feeling red for then?

CC: NO CLAMMING UP!

CA: i really don't wwant to talk about it

CC: Tell me! 38D

CA: okay fef

CA: this is NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS

CC: 38o

CC: Okay S)(-E-ESH Mr Grumpy-Gills!

CC: Just trying to c)(eer you up. 38(

CA: okay really not the time

CC: Well okay maybe not, but you're not t)(e only one missing people.

CA: since wwhen wwere you friends with tavv

CC: W)(at?

On another window, Eridan read over the angry grey words pouring in and tried his best to reason against them.

CG: DUDE JUST FUCKING TELL HER ALREADY.

CG: I MEAN SHE'S LITERALLY IN THE OTHER WINDOW RIGHT NOW TALKING ABOUT WHO YOU FEEL RED FOR.

CG: IS THERE LESS OF A PERFECT TIME TO TELL HER?

CG: YEAH, I DON'T THINK SO.

CA: i knoww i knoww kar

CA: its just wwhat if she doesnt like me like that

CA: that wwould literally ruin evverythin

CA: and also wwevve kinda movved on noww

CG: OKAY, WELL

CG: I GET THAT, I HEAR YOU MAN

CG: BUT WHAT IF THIS OPPORTUNITY DOESN'T POP UP AGAIN?

CG: YOU'RE JUST GONNA HAVE TO WATCH HER WALTZ OFF WITH SOME OTHER DOUCHEBAG. IS THAT YOU WANT?

CA: wwell obvviously not

CA: but seriously I just dont wwanna ruin this

CA: like id rather be her friend that some jerk she feels too awwkwward to be around

CG: WELL YEAH, BUT SERIOUSLY YOU COULD MISS YOUR CHANCE HERE.

CA: ugh FINE

CA: im just reelly nervvous okay

CA: wwhoops fuckin fish puns

CC: YOU'LL BE FINE, BRO.

He switched windows.

CC: W)(hy do you assume it's Tavros?

CC: I mean )(e's really sweet but I didn't reely speak to )(im T)(AT muc)(.

CA: well obvviously it wwasnt tavv do you think im fuckin dumb

CC: SIGH.

CC: I R-E-ELLY )(ope you're not angling for anot)(er jealousy rant, Eridan.

CA: i don't evven wwanna talk about that fuckin drama machine

CC: 38I

CA: fef

CC: mmm?

CA: okay so you knoww howw tavv vvris and sol just kinda disappeared

CA: uh wwell im kinda wworried that uh one of us could go missin

Wait. Fuck. Where was this going? The girl was getting a bad feeling about this…

CC: Well it's not like t)(ey went missing or anyfin.

CC: T)(ey ran away… 38T

CA: you knoww wwhat i mean

CA: like wwhat if doc just karts one of us off one day wwithout another wword

CA: and okay basically ivve just spent all this time here wworryin and thinkin about stuff

CA: and i decided i have something i wwant to tell you

Fuck he really was going to go for it wasn't he? Oh god this was going to be a mess, ugh. If he had done this sooner then maybe she would have still had such feelings for his sorry ass, but Feferi had abandoned such thoughts three years ago.

Besides, she was still going to stand by the fact that it could (and probably would) ruin their friendship. Relationships very rarely lasted forever, especially one made at the age of seventeen, and so realistically they would break up and it would be hideously awkward for eternity, especially when taking into account how long they would both live.

And of course, such thoughts drew her mind to a certain low-blood but damn it she was not in the mood for depressing thoughts like that.

CC: O)(, really?

CC: T)(at's good! Actually, I )(ave somet)(ing I )(ave been meaning to say to you too.

CA: wwhoa really

CA: uh

CA: wwhat is it

CA: you go first

CC: Okay.

CC: But t)(is isn't easy to say!

CA: yeah i knoww

CA: its okay maybe I wwill understand more than you think

CA: wwe might evven be sayin the same thing

CC: Okay, I )(ope so.

Liar.

Feferi found herself reverting to playing along with him to keep Eridan happy, exactly what she promised herself she would stop doing. Enough of trying to please him all the time. This was her life.

But fuck was it painful.

CC: Well, um, okay I t)(ink we s)(ould see less of eac)( ot)(er

CC: I mean, now t)(at we've grown up a bit more, I just t)(ink t)(at maybe we're not so perfect for eac)( ot)(er as we t)(oug)(t we were.

CC: )(onestly, sometimes I find you really infuriating and I'm sure it's mutual.

CA: wwhoa

CA: wwait

CA: wwhat

CC: I am really sorry, -Eridan. It )(as just been so )(ard looking after you and keeping you out of trouble!

CC: It )(as taken its toll, and )(onestly I am really ex)(austed.

CC: I'm tired, -Eridan, and I need to t)(ink about myself.

CA: fuck

CA: this isnt what

CA: i dont knoww i wwasnt expectin this at all

CA: im not sure i can handle this

CC: I'm sorry!

Liar.

CC: It will be t)(e best for bot)( of us. We can just sort of be… regular friends instead.

CA: no

CA: please don't

CA: look im bein serious here dont do this

CA: i wont even use my weird accent while i type ok so you know im bein really dead serious and honest about this

CC: Uh… okay, I am being serious and honest too. SEE?

CA: are you sure you arent being hasty about this

CA: i mean weve known each other like all our lives

CA: you cant just throw that all away because youre sick of me

CC: I am not sick of you, Eridan! I still really like you.

CC: But… I just can't be around you all the time, it's making me stressed and I just…

CC: I can't look after you anymore.

CA: I DIDN'T EVER NEED ANYONE TO LOOK AFTER ME

CA: i was totally fuckin fine

CA: and the only reason i put up with stickin my finger in this fuckin shithole friendzone with you was

CC: Was what?

What a fucking stupid question.

CA: nevermind

CC: Tell me!

CA: ok fine

CA: i apologize for losin my shit over this I was just caught off guard is all

CA: i just

CA: ive maybe been feeling something more…

CA: well red for you

CA: and i was thinkin if maybe youve thought of something like that

CC: No, I hadn't thought about it!

CA: ok well now that you are thinkin about it

CC: Um… I really don't know about that.

CA: why not i thought you said you liked me

CC: Eridan, listen I really do like you! We've been friends for nearly eighteen years now.

CC: But like I said, you're draining to be around now and I just can't do it.

CC: It's taken all my energy and I don't think I have anything left for those feelings.

CA: oh god

CA: im the biggest fuckin idiot who ever lived

CA: i cant BELIEVE I opened up to you like a chump when I shouldve knew what was comin

CA: i am one sad fuckin brinesucker

CA: overemotional sappy trash youre right im not better than anybody

CA: im worse than anybody

CA: EVERYBODY

CA: all the bodies

CC: STOP!

CC: God, just shut the fuck up.

CC: For once if your life.

CC: This is exactly what I'm talking about! You go completely overboard with your emotions, always looking to reel in drama wherever you can.

CC: I am fed up! I can't summon the strength anemonemore.

CC: Just please, grow up a little and get over yourself, because otherwise you're just going to end up a lonely old man with no one to blame but yourself.

CC: I can't be bothered to be your punching bag for whenever things go wrong for you. I have feelings too!

CC: Ugh! I've been so stressed the past year because of you and I don't deserve it. So I'm going to be selfish.

CA: I'm fucking done here.

CC: BY-E!

CA: wwait

CA: dont go

cuttlefishCuller [CC] ceased trolling caligulasAquarium [CA]

CA: glub

* * *

><p><strong>== Be Jade<strong>

You are now Jade Harley, on the front lines of a war against people you don't really want to be fighting against.

To her left, she could hear the pale mutants ripping into the opposing forces, a sickening noise that she could have quite happily done without. To her right stood Dave, awkwardly fiddling with the hilt of his knife.

Many mutants were already fighting, and a good portion of them had horrific powers. For example, one young man was stood at the centre of a brawl that consisted of people fighting other people. Mind control…? No, that was stupid, that does not even exist! But then after seeing the Handmaid's telekinesis…

The pale mutants, rainbow-drinkers she believed, were using little more than either a gun or knife and their own teeth to take down people.

But some of the strangest contraptions were the humanoid creatures that were ripping through the battlefields. Their bodies were segmented and insect-like, with their fingers ending in horridly sharp points. And if you actually managed to get through the thick exoskeleton that covered their entire body and kill the creature, three more would appear.

They had initially horrified Jade, as they would anyone, but as time went on she began to notice things that seemed off. There, a smaller creature with one of its arms loped off was being comforted by another, and behind a tent, one was curled up into a tight ball, muttering to itself in a strange, whistling language.

It seemed impossible for the retainment organisation to even have a snowball's chance in hell at defeating the rest of the world, even with all the carapaces, but somehow… they were? Yet the fighting was still taking too long, in the Condesce's opinion, so she had flown north with the promise of the activation of 'plan b'. Jade hadn't a clue what that meant, but she doubted it was good.

After reporting to the woman in charge of this area, they were sent into a small underground shelter, which they were told would take them further along into the battlefield. Inside, a number of soldiers sat, both mutants and human. It did not seem as if they were doing anything.

A few looked up at their arrival, but that was all the acknowledgement they gave.

At the far end of the room was a gap in the metal, and through this, a tunnel. Jade guessed this was where they were meant to go.

"This leads you further in… right?" she asked, her voice quiet and hesitant. A mutant nodded.

The pair stood in the safety of the shelter for a little while longer, listening to the bullets and screaming in the distance.

"Go on…" the Condesce crooned via their earpieces, having grown impatient of waiting. Well then, no more delaying.

"Come on, Dave."

Unlike the harshly lit shelter, the tunnels were lacking in LEDs, and so void of any light. With one hand, Jade felt the walls as to discern where the path was, not dissimilar to another young lady not so long ago. The girl's other hand was tightly clutching Dave's, leading him along behind her; she had noticed him beginning to tremble a little before entering the tunnel, and so thought it may help a little.

"I-," Jade began, but her voice had gone horrid and croaky, so she gave her throat a quick clear before trying again. "I bet you can't see anything with those shades on."

"Not really."

The speakers in their helmets were now activated, so the microphones could easily pick up what one was saying and convey it to the other, no matter what the distance between them was.

But it was not needed at this current moment in time, as neither could think of anything to say.

As they continued down the tunnel, their external microphones began to pick up a strange scratching noise from the stretch in front of them.

"It's probably those bug things finishing off the tunnel." decided Jade, more to reassure herself than Dave. He nodded nonetheless.

They stopped again, pausing for a while. Once they were done with this tunnel they would be on the actual battlefield.

Neither wanted to admit it, but there was the very real fact that one or both of them could die.

This was not a video game. There were no extra lives.

If they died out here, they were dead. For ever.

"If you are stopping to have a heartfelt confession in case one of you does not return, make it snappy."

What? It was not even like that.

Eyes narrowed with embarrassment, they continued, both put off by the Condesce.

At the end of the tunnel, a light shone down from the ceiling, illuminating the two carapaces that stood at the end in an eerie fashion. One pointed upwards, indicating the exit. It was the end of the line.

A strange clicking sound came from the darker carapace, as if it was trying to talk to Dave. Unable to think of anything more appropriate, the boy stuck his thumbs up at the creature.

"Good luck, Harley."

"You too, coolkid." And with that, Jade scrambled up the walls of the tunnel and into the harsh sunlight of the desert.

Gunfire exploded around them, and while most bullets bounced near-harmlessly off the body armour, one managed to create a nick on Jade's visor.

"Fuck!"

Was she supposed to drop to the ground at this point, or would that just mean she would find it harder to move and so an easier target… but then less available surface area to shoot, but if she was not moving then it would be easier in a different way to hit her… oh for god's sake! Jade had not even had proper contact with another human being for years on end, and now she was expected to figure out how their minds would work?

This was stupid. And deadly. Mainly deadly.

Having this particular battlefield in the middle of a desert meant that there was very little in the way of cover. For miles and miles around them, all they could see was the battle. The humans on their side, the humans on the other side, the carapaces, the mutants and the deaths all under the blazing midday sun.

Then suddenly a strange sound began to fill the air next to her… a scratching almost?

"Can you hear that, Dave?"

"What, the explosions?"

"No, like a kind of vwocha vwotcha vwotch. Can you hear it now?" she mimed with little scratching motions in the air.

Dave cocked his head, the visor of his helmet indicating that he was staring into the distance.

"Dunno, it sounds like you were making a kind of turntable noise, which would be the stupidest thing I ever heard get said since we're in the middle of a fucking battle…" the boy replied, his smirk hidden behind the visor.

Then a '_Dave_!' was shrieked as Jade pressed down on his head, forcing him into a crouch and shot down someone trying to ambush them. The enemy dropped down to the ground. Dead.

Jade was unperturbed, she had shot people before. It was not preferable but sometimes the need to act quickly and take out someone else before they took out part of you took over. Fight or flight essentially, since if Dave, one of her very closest friends, was taken out she would not know what she would do.

The scratching noise was getting louder, and with the added bonus of more people crowding around the two of them since they had now killed, Jade was getting very stressed.

They had ducked behind a pile made from bomb debris and a body for cover, shooting out from over the top of it when the dust cloud cleared a little.

Scritch scritch scratch scriitch scratch.

"Who has the time to lay out some strict beats now?" Dave pondered, occasionally shooting out blindly into the space before them.

_Scratch_ _scratch vwotcha vwot vwot_.

"Having a your own soundtrack is surprisingly annoying actually!" Jade snarled around the sound of her gun blasts. "Fucks sake, stop moving!"

"Yeah they'll be moving so they don't get killed. I dunno, people do that kind of shit now and again." Dave said, casting a worried look at the girl.

_Scratchhh vwot vwottta vwtoch scritch_.

It was at this moment in time that something relatively expected though still surprising happened, and another thing that was incredibly strange.

A member of the opposing side suddenly appeared, gun ready to shoot Jade in the cracks of her visor, then in the face through the shattered glass. This would have worked had someone else not appeared before them.

This figure, dressed in a dirty, white tuxedo with horrid sunburn just… well, _materialised_ in the path of the bullet.

And they took it.

And they slumped back, falling onto Jade.

It was a strange, blond haired man by the looks of it, but the hair was covering his face. Since Jade's arms were pinned down by the body, Dave quickly shot the attacker, wincing at every kick back of the gun. They were soon disposed of.

But who was this man? The girl noticed how the scritch-scratching had stopped now. Could these two things be related? Probably.

He was still breathing, although the inhalations were shaky and shallow. Since the attacker had been aiming at a crouching Jade, he had aimed relatively low, so the bullet had caught the man in his stomach.

"Hey, Harley?" he rasped. "You still alive?"

Both the younger humans froze.

No, it couldn't be…

Dave reached out, and with a few fingers he brushed the hair from the man's face… and then after a few seconds of staring, simply disappeared.

"_Dave_?" she shrieked, staring at where he had been a moment ago. "_Dave_?"

"Yeah?"

No… wait… so, so it really was?

Jade looked down at the face on her lap. But no, it really could not be… surely not. But the resemblance was pretty striking…

This Dave, if it was a Dave, looked a little older… yeah, he was definitely a year or two above them; his eyes were a deep, vivid maroon.

As she had noticed earlier, a horrid peeling sunburn covered most of his exposed skin. Combining this with the filthy tuxedo and matted, shoulder-length hair would suggest that this Dave had spent a fair amount of time wandering a sunny place for days and days on end.

"No, I meant the, the other Dave, um… my Dave." she stammered. At the 'my Dave', his expression soured a little, yet he was still looking up at her with an incredibly surprised look.

"Sorry," he chuckled. "But it's really weird seeing you again… well I mean hear you again anyway."

Huh. She had forgotten about the full body armour she was wearing.

And then he sort of slumped a little more against her, eyes semi-shut.

Shit.

Another shot bounced off her visor, and she snapped.

There was a fucking _dead alternate Dave_ on her lap, and people were still fucking _shooting _at her?

She was being unreasonable, sure, but it put her right into the Condesce's plan so from that front this whole endeavour was a success.

A strange green crackling filled the air around her and then, as swiftly as Dave had disappeared, so did she.

The place where she reappeared was warm and mild, nothing like the intense heat of the desert. Beneath them was cool grass that felt delicious on alternate-Dave's burnt skin.

Being confused, Jade simply lay on the ground for a while, staring up at the empty sky with the weight of a body on her chest.

Many clouds drifted by before she found herself able to sit up. This new Dave slumped off her, hitting the ground face first. She did not notice this.

This was her island. Her. _Island_.

Her island? But how? She was in a desert and now… she was not? And as _if_ this were not enough, almost all of her island was now underwater, with only the uppermost reaches of her greenhouses high and dry. Had there been flooding since she was taken by the Condesce? There was no other explanation.

But still, as someone who had just been through an insane amount of shit would, Jade began to sob. Her house was ruined now, so even if she was able to return one day from the retainment organisation, she had nowhere to go.

All of her stuff, and all of Grandpa Harley's quirky things… they were doubtless destroyed and that was that. But maybe… maybe if she could just swim to that top part of her house…

Standing up, she shaded her eyes with a hand to get a better look at the damage. Wait… the sea had not risen by such a crazy amount, but rather the wave that had doubtlessly come to bring the water had snapped her tower into many pieces and scattered them about.

Jade gave a sigh of relief at this discovery. While it was worse for her house (it was ruined anyway so what did it matter), it meant that the earth as a whole was in a much better state. And that's what was important in the end, right? Right?

Ugh, she was not in the mood for morals, and it meant for certain that all those plants she had been nurturing for years on end were dead.

Alternate-Dave was still face down in the grass from where the Islander had left him. Was he actually dead though? She had simply flipped her shit when he stopped moving and not bothered to check.

Rolling him into his back, she checked for a pulse, and found one (though it was fairly pathetic as a pulse went), then from this tried to rouse him, but it seemed like the sod was out for the count. Fair enough since he had just been shot in the gut.

She tried applying some sort of press to the wound, but Jade had only seen such procedures performed on movies so in reality she was probably making no difference.

"Dave? Are you still there?" she asked, continuing to put pressure on the bullet hole. No response. "Okay well basically, this is what's going on. We teleported or something from the battlefield and ended up somewhere on my island. Um, there's been a huge flood and… and my house is ruined."

Covering her mouth with her hand, she sobbed a little more, for there was no one to hear her, and then curled up in a tight ball as she watched the sun travel across the sky. Dave was bleeding to death and there was nothing she could do. She had never before felt so useless.

After another few minutes of this, she found herself suddenly falling asleep – a result of the energy needed to transport herself. When she awoke a helicopter was waiting at the end of the land they were on.

"We've been looking all over for you, Harley." said the Condesce. "When you teleported you literally left this planet, or dimension perhaps, because you did not reappear until several hours later on our radar."

A strange roaring sound began to be audible.

"Ah, right on time. If you do not come with me then you will perish in the oncoming tsunami."

Jade sat up quickly and stared into the distance. Well fuck, there were more.

With a cold smirk, the Condesce explained, "You see, there was a still a chance the opposing side could win so I took it upon myself to cause a little flooding. Just to ruffle some feathers, stack the odds in my favour a little more."

"What?" Jade asked.

"Well, the ice-caps were on the verge of melting fully anyway, I simply helped them along a little. Anyway, quickly now, in. Now that you can use your power you are useful to me. And we'll save that scrap's life as well since clearly he aided you in your teleportation."

"What?" the girl repeated.

"We can talk more on the ride there. In!"

And favouring her chances more with the Condesce, Jade climbed into the helicopter.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** I am so so sorry this one took so long _again_! I've been super busy at the moment with barely any time to write, and I found these characters hard and writers block and ugh, you get the idea!

And thank you to fanfic-rater for giving this a 9.5/10 WOW, and to latula-in-equestria for suggesting it. THANK YOU!

Anyway, what I've been meaning to put here for ages and ages but keep on forgetting is that there are two other awesome awesome tavris fics that you should totally check out! The first I think I may have already mentioned, which would be 'White Eyes' by TsunofDere, and is the fiction that got me into tavris in the first place, and the second is 'To Each on the Ends' by Tearoom Saloon, both on fanfiction under the characters of Vriska and Tavros, with over 10,000 words :)

OH YEAH and final thing, I track the 'saltwater room' tag on tumblr, so if there's anything you want me to see, tag it that c:

Thanks for reading! ^^


	24. Tunnels and trackers

On the third day travelling through the caves, Sollux collapsed, shortly followed by Vriska.

Between them, the Handmaid and Tavros figured that it was due to the lack of food and water, and the long distances they were having to walk. Though it probably didn't need both of them to crack that mystery. Why Tavros had not collapsed was put down to the fact that he had robotic legs, which probably helped lessen the amount of energy he was expending. As for the Handmaid, well, she simply claimed that she had been through worse. Tavros did not want to argue with that.

"Here, take Sollux. He's lighter," the Handmaid said as she hefted Vriska up into a piggyback ride. "Huh, like a sack of potatoes."

"Couldn't you, uhh, just lift us all, with your telekinesis?" asked Tavros.

The woman raised an eyebrow at him. "No."

At the tunnel's first change in direction, both conscious members of the party walked straight into the wall. Without Sollux's light they were completely blind, and due to the people being carried on their backs they were unable to feel along the walls. Well then…

Above them they could hear a distant rumbling sound: the war. The Handmaid had a good idea what was going on and so informed Tavros.

It was strange for him, or indeed anyone, to think about how there were people loosing their lives above them, and how there were villages being destroyed, skyscrapers tumbling and crashing to the ground…

"I'm guessing she'll be flooding the surface soon." the woman commented casually at one point.

They marched on through the darkness for a good while longer before Sollux and Vriska actually owned up to being awake.

As before, the Handmaid gave them a chewy sweet and then expected them to continue as usual.

"Stop! I need to sit down a bit longer," Vriska said after her legs collapsed under her weight. "I'm too tired, we've literally been walking miles for days on nothing but fucking sweets. And I'm thiiiiiiiirsty."

It startled them a little, for Vriska was not one for admitting her weaknesses.

"Well I'm sorry, your highness, but that's all you're going to get," replied the Handmaid, uncertain on how to reply. "We can't go to the surface, it's a war zone up there, so the best we can do is just to keep on waltzing down these tunnels 'til we find a bunker or food store."

"And the chances of finding one of those?"

The Handmaid considered borrowing the Condesce's idea of slapping Vriska when she got too cocky, but then again Vriska was seventeen now, and so that was probably not the best route to take anymore.

"We haven't seen one yet, though it could have slipped us. Basically, we should see one pretty soon."

"If you want, I could, uh, scout ahead, or something?" Tavros offered, though was quickly shot down.

"No. Not only is it pitch black out there, so you wouldn't be able to see a thing anyway, but we shouldn't split up. It's too easy to get lost and separated. That's the last thing we need."

They waited just long enough for Vriska to recover, and then set off.

To everyone's surprise, after an hour they found a small door hidden in the side of the wall. It was Sollux who found it thanks to the light emitted from his optic blasts. After spotting the thin outline of the door, they managed to locate a handle and pried it open.

Inside, food! And at the back a small sink. Water? Hopefully. Sollux was almost one hundred percent certain that people could not go more than three days without water.

A clink filled the dusty space as Vriska sifted through the jars on the shelving units. She sneered as soon as she managed to get a good look at the contents, then picked one up.

"More sauerkraut, great."

"At leatht ith not corned beef." replied Sollux with a shrug.

It was at this point that the Handmaid made a satisfied little noise, soon followed by, "I found a torch."

Wrapping a small bit of cloth around the end, she then switched it on. Their eyes had been so used to the meagre light from Sollux that the bright LEDs would be immensely uncomfortable. And even then, when the torch was switched on they all groaned and covered their eyes.

Once they had gotten over the shock of light, they got to work sifting through the food reserves. A good deal of the shelves were bare, suggesting that they were not the first to find this place. In a corner were sealed bags of blankets and gas masks. Clearly someone had gone to town down here.

"Jarth thould be fine, right?"

The Handmaid shrugged, "Tins are best for preserving food, but jars should work. Just taste it before you dive in."

"I'm not four." Sollux replied irritably.

Much of the food was spoilt due to the length of time it had been sitting there, however they did manage to salvage a couple tins of thick lentil soup. In a sudden burst of anxiety to eat the meal properly, Vriska snapped off pieces of the wooden shelves and made a small pile in the middle of the room.

Following an expectant head gesture, Sollux said, "What?"

"Aren't you going to light it?"

"You're ath fucking dumb ath ever. If you want to light that you'll have to open the door, or the fire will uthe up all the oxygen and we'll die. And if we open the door then they'll follow the thmoke."

"The Handmaid has burning incense the whole time and we haven't been found yet."

Nobody spoke for a few seconds, then the Handmaid decided, "Light it, Lasers. We could probably do with the pick me up of a fire and warm food."

He told the three of them to go fuck themselves then slunk of to a dark corner of the room.

They ate the soup cold.

A night was spent in the room, which soon warmed up thanks to the four bodies emitting heat, and by morning they were all warmer than they had been in a while. Sollux still refused to make a fire, so they ate cold soup again for breakfast.

They found a pack of cards in the room, which they took to playing. None of the younger mutants knew how to play with them, and only Tavros had seen a real pack before, something that bewildered the Handmaid. She taught them blackjack first, as it was relatively easy to learn in its simplest state, though Vriska had an insanely lucky streak which irritated them no end.

Once they grew bored of Vriska's luck at the game, which took a grand total of ten minutes, the Handmaid collected the cards back in, gave them a long, thorough shuffle (because how was Vriska even getting so lucky, surely she'd shuffled them wrong) then paused, tapping the deck against her lower lip as she thought.

"Do you know poker?" she asked.

"I've read about it in books, uh, from before the war. No one really plays it anymore… I don't think." Tavros replied.

With a wry smile she dealt the cards out, then stood up and rummaged about the room to find something that could serve as poker chips. A small journal was found with writing in, though none of them could read the language it was written in, so they tore up a few of the pages and used them as a replacement for the chips.

The first game was a long one as Tavros, Vriska and Sollux tried to navigate their way about the game. It was easier said than done but eventually they learnt the basic rules of the game, though not the scoring at the end, as the Handmaid herself did not have a clue how that worked so mostly made it up.

The one night soon turned into another, with the reasoning of 'we need to eat loads now before we leave in case we don't find anymore food for a while'. After the third night, they took as much supplies as they could carry and set off into the tunnels again.

Now that they had torches and blankets, the journey was somewhat more enjoyable, and Vriska did not feel as if she could freeze each night, though she still would have liked to borrow the body heat of one of her lower-blooded companions.

The second day after they had left the room, Vriska found herself leaning against the wall of the tunnel rubbing slow circles into her lower leg with her thumb. The stiffness in her leg was no where near as bad as it used to get at the start of their escapade, for which she was thankful for. But it was still a pain in the ass regardless.

A shifting in fabric drew her attention to the body next to her. Tavros rubbed his eyes, then realised that in the darkness it would do little to improve his vision.

He picked up a torch, got to his feet then shuffled down the corridor until Vriska lost sight of him. Probably went off to pee.

"Is anyone awake?" he asked softly once he returned, ears held forwards and alert as he tried to listen out for any movement. There was no point in pretending to be asleep, for his hearing was just as good as hers, so Vriska gave a small cough.

"Oh, uhh, Vriska."

An awkward silence followed.

"You still hate me, don't you," Vriska commented with a surreal amount of detachment. "Both of you."

"Uhh?"

"I'm not mad about it, Tavros. You don't have to pretend otherwise," she smirked. "What, are you too worried about hurting my feelings?"

"There's nothing wrong with, uhh, being worried about hurting, other people's feelings." he protested.

Vriska snorted loudly. "That's a very Tavros thing to say. Sure, look out for others and whatever, but you need to stop thinking you owe something to other people. You need to put yourself first for a change, or people will walk all over you. Oh wait, they already do."

"Wow. Okay, are you just going to, uh, sit there, and insult me all night?"

"Nah, I've got better things to do."

"Uhh… like?"

About to reply, Vriska paused and thought. Damn, she really didn't have anything to do. It was either talk to Tavros or go back to sleep, and Tavros was sounding far sassier than she was used to. She shifted into a more comfortable position against the wall; a position closer to him so she could speak softer in case of Sollux and the Handmaid waking up (not that it would do anything).

"You've got me. I'm bored."

"Then why don't you go to sleep?"

"Hmm, I wonder why?"

"You can't sleep?"

"Obviously not if I'm still speaking to you."

"You're, uhh, as rude as ever."

"Of course," she said with a sickly smile. "Would you expect anything less?"

"Not really.

Neither spoke for several minutes.

"Hey, Toreadork?"

"Yeah?"

Vriska thought over her words in her head.

"Did you ever get worried we were going to die?" she asked.

"Huh?"

Embarrassed, she turned defensive, "Well, I mean I didn't. Obviously. But like, for a orange-blood like you, you must see death around every corner! Must suck to not be cerulean."

"Oh."

"As in, when we were travelling for days with nothing but a fucking chewy sweet to keep us alive. It was pretty rough. I don't know what the Handmaid was thinking," Vriska whispered angrily.

"Isn't it, uhh, obvious? Like, I get the impression that, uh, she's been trapped in that building for, well, ages. She just wanted to put as much distance between us and T.R.O.L.L as possible. I don't, uhh, think she was really doing it, consciously."

"Hmm."

They were silent for a while, Tavros fiddling with one of his zips while Vriska subconsciously began to massage her calves.

"Hey… um," Tavros began haltingly. "So uh… you know all that stuff about, uhh, you and Eridan right?"

Vriska turned with an amused look. "Yeah?"

"Um, so, like… was all the stuff he, uhh, was, well saying, you know… true?"

"What do you mean?" she replied, her voice going low, then mocking. "Are you wanting me to spill all the dirty details of what happened between me and hipster fish or something?"

Face suddenly lighting up with a thick flush, Tavros leapt to his defence, "No! No no no no no. Shit, no, that's uhh, that's not what I, well, meant at all. It's just, you know what Eridan is like, uhh, best out of all of us. He has the, um, tendency to lie and exaggerate a lot, you know?"

"Why, what was he saying?"

"Ohh, well, you know… um, actually, no, nevermind, that was really, uhh, intruding of me. I'm sorry."

"No, you started this and I'm curious now. What kind of stuff was he saying?"

"Uhh, well you know… all about, um, ah, getting it on every, uh, night, and some of the, well, details of, umm, it seemed somewhat, uhh, off."

"_What_?" Vriska roared, startling the Handmaid and Sollux who had been listening in and making them jump. "Are you fucking serious? Oh my gooooooood."

She then startled them again by laughing with genuine amusement.

"Wow, I cannot believe he's _that_ pathetic. He was always going on about how he was gonna make Feferi jealous and shit like that, but woooooooow. No, he wishes he got in my pants, he was making all that 'detail' up, what a fucking loser." Then at the visible sigh of relief from Tavros, and a relax to the shoulders from Sollux, she asked, "What's with the relief?"

"I get the impression that some pretty kinky things were goin' round about you, bearcat."

At this, Vriska sneered in disgust. "So that's why you were asking me, Tavros. Well, no, we didn't do anything like that. Gross. I would make a comment on how I cant believe your gullibility, but it honestly doesn't surprise me."

Seeing as they were all awake again, the Handmaid decided that it would be best if they simply kept going again. And so, after a quick breakfast of somewhat warm sauerkraut (they had finally managed to persuade Sollux to heat the bottom of the jars with his lasers) they set off again.

It was the third day after this that Vriska began to notice something a little peculiar. As per usual, she awoke a while before the others and started her routine of leg massages, but something she had not been expecting was to be able to see a strange grey blur in front of her. She rubbed her eyes and looked again, only to find that a vague and hazy image of the corridor was visible, yet something seemed off about the image.

Confused, closed her left eye.

The corridor was rendered invisible again and she could see nothing but black.

She then closed only her right eye.

A greyscale image of the scene before her was now visible.

So it was only in her right eye; that would explain why it looked off.

Admittedly it was very much blurred, and the depth perception was messed up due to only one eye allowing her to see in such a way, but wow, for the first time since they had gone down in the tunnels, she had been able to properly see everything around them without being dazzled by the light of the torch, or straining her eyes to see by the meagre amount of light given by Sollux's optic blasts, when hidden mostly behind his weird coloured glasses.

Vriska was so excited by this that she leapt to her feet, then felt pain ripple down her calves and sat back down again, so prodded the other three awake instead.

Initially confused and sceptical, Sollux and Tavros tested said eyesight in a number of ways (though little conclusion was made, seeing as the eyesight was still new and blurred.

To the Handmaid, however, this news was not only unsurprising, but also expected.

With Vriska's permission, she took the covered torch and shone it at both of the girls eyes, making a satisfied noise when she saw the right eye. It drew a noise of horror from the boys however.

"Why are you freaked out?" she demanded. "What the fuck is up with my eye?"

"Nothin's wrong with your eye, kiddo," the Handmaid smiled. "It's doin' what it should. I admittedly was a little worried about whether this would go through, what with you getting it removed an' all, but it's fine. Do you know about your ancester, Mindfang, a bit more now after all your time with the witch?"

"She had more important shit to teach me than about some old lady," Vriska pouted. "Though I know she was pretty fucking badass."

"Hm, I guess you could see it like that. I'd refer to Mindfang as more of a pirate though. Don't get it into your head, bearcat, that Mindfang was _at all_ admirable. She wasn't a good person… mutant… hybrid… oh whatever," the Handmaid frowned. "Either way, she possessed vision eightfold, and it's a trait that should well have passed onto you."

"Also, uhh, your iris and pupils have kinda, um, started to separate a bit into a kinda, weird blob… which, im not going to lie, is pretty fucking weird." Tavros commented.

"Oh," said Vriska. "Yeah, that is pretty fucking weird."

Though really, what with the complete change in skin colour, height, teeth and gaining horns, the idea of her eyes changing a bit again did not phase her a massive amount.

It took about three days for the vision to clear enough to be of use, and this, the Handmaid deduced, was because the pupil and iris of Vriska's eyes were still in the process of splitting up properly, and so the vision would be blurred until the movement was done.

Now that the mutant was able to see (somewhat) clearly in the dark, the torch was no longer used. Admittedly, there was little chance of the Condesce's people finding them now, it had been over a week and they still had not be found, but better safe than sorry. They were now as they had before, and relied some what on the optic blast's light, along with Vriska to guide them in the general direction.

Out of the four in their group, the person they wanted to be reliant on the least was Vriska, but at the end of the day beggars cannot be choosers, and a bitch who had no social skills but did have nightvision was better than a saint with no nightvision.

Though she did frequently make them bump into walls on purpose.

They had been in the tunnel almost twenty days when the four were met with the acrid reek of damp. The tunnels were generally very dry, and so mould was a very rare occurrence. But this was a scent that so overwhelmed them, that the Handmaid with her far more advanced sense of smell had to sit down for a bit.

Once she was able to continue again, they travelled further ahead and were given an explanation of the smell.

A opening to the tunnels.

It was the second opening they had seen on the course of their travels, and while Vriska and Sollux were raring to go at the sight of it, the Handmaid told them not to go anywhere near it.

And it was soon apparent why.

"See where the torch is pointing? All this funky damp smell is because of the water seepin' in. It must be the Condesce's plan; she figured that submerging the planet in water was a sure-fire way to win the war," The Handmaid pursed her lips, then added, "And, I guess, it had the additional benefit of bein' annoying as fuck for us, rendering us unable to leave by most of the exits for these tunnels."

Once finished speaking, the Handmaid swore once more, angrily and aggressively, before folding her arms and looking up.

"We could risk just openin' it anyway, and seeing if we can try our best to swim up without drowning. But I don't think that'd be wise."

"I bet I could do it," shrugged Vriska.

"Really?" the Handmaid replied in a faux-surprised tone. "Well ain't that the bees knees! But, you see, it's not gonna be a few metres. There could well be a mile deep of water out there, and while you may have _bedded_ a pretty seadweller boy, that doesn't _make_ you one. Got it?"

"How many times? I didn't fuck Eridan!" Vriska snarled. "And what other chance are we going to get? Surely she'll be waiting by any of the openings that are above the water. We should just take this one. It'll be fine."

"It won't! Even if you did manage to make it to the surface, where would you go? You'd have to swim for miles and miles before you found land. I refuse to take that risk and put my life and your lives in such risk. We are going to keep moving," the Handmaid, her voice getting louder by the minute. "If you do wanna do something though, then you could usefully cut out the trackers in our arms, we cannot have them in when we get to the surface."

"Oh yeah? How am I supposed to do that?"

"With a knife and some thread?" the older woman said. "Your immune systems should be very advanced by now too, so we can use the water from up there to clean the wounds a bit. There may be quite a bit of blood."

"Aren't you forgetting that we have no idea where the tracker ith in the firtht plathe? Going by the thithe of the needle they uthed to inject it in, it'll be pretty tiny," Sollux pointed out. "We would be rummaging around in peopleth armth for dayth trying to find it."

At this, the Handmaid put a hand on Vriska's shoulder, which was both unexpected and kind of weird. "You forget that this girl has vision eightfold now. She can look into your arm and find where it is, and from there we cut the arm open, I'll pull it out with my powers, and then we stitch the wound closed. It shouldn't be a big wound either."

"Then, uhh, why didn't you do that before?"

"Like I said, Vriska had vision eightfold now, and not when we first came in. If not for that then the only viable option really would be amputation, because of the very small size of the tracker and how impossible it would be to find," the Handmaid paused to collect her thoughts. "We would not do that, however, unless circumstances were really dire, as it'd probably result in at least one of us being bumped off.

'The Condesce knows this too. But she _is_ in the dark about Vriska's vision eightfold. After givin' her a new eye, she didn't think that any more mutatin' would be going down there. But it has, so luckily for us we're a step ahead of the witch."

Vriska frowned, "How am I supposed to see the tracker? All I can do is see slightly better in the dark now."

"If your vision eightfold is anything like that of Mindfang's, then you should be able to see its position inside the arm. In theory."

"Well I'm thure ath fuck not being the tetht thubject."

"Couldn't there, uhh, be a way for Vriska to make you use your telekinesis on the tracker when, she knows where it, um, is?"

"Hmm," the Handmaid pouted. "That would involve letting down my guard around Vriska, and seeing as it is not a conscious thing that would be tricky. I would rather not have to be controlled, yet it seems I have no choice. We need to practice first."

"Yeah, okay."

"Vriska, this is gonna be _hard_. I hope you're confident in your abilities."

"Please. Im Vriska Serket, I exude confidence, and luck. So your lack of faith is pretty insulting to be honest," she said, then shrugged. "I should be able to, I've done weirder."

"Thath for thure."

Vriska sat, then stared intensely at her arm, trying to identify something vaguely tracker like. It would surely not be made of the same flesh and blood that the rest of her arm would be. That was a start…

Nothing happened.

But she kept focused, and after another few moments something changed. And while she was looking at the grey skin of her arm still, it was as if she could also see _through_ it. Skin and muscles and veins started to blur almost, as her vision eightfold began to focus on something else. Something… plastic and silicon and metal… it was almost focussed… almost there

Tap.

"Aah!" Vriska jumped as Tavros's hand lightly tapped her shoulder. "I almost had it! What's your problem?"

"Ohh, sorry! It's just, uhh, well you've kind of been sitting there for about ten minutes now, so, um…" Tavros fumbled, and Vriska was somewhat amused at how he no longer seemed like the cocky and overconfident boy he had been acting like a few months prior. That mission wherein they had met up accidentally had been weird, especially concerning the shy boy's personality. Either way, she was still pissed off at him snapping her out of focus.

"What did you do that for, Toreadork? I was almost there! And I did not take ten minutes, it was barely two."

"You must have been really focused, bearcat," the Handmaid chuckled, then her tone dampened. "Though judging by the amount of focus you need, I doubt you would be able to control my telekinesis at the same time."

"I'm sure I could, just let me practice more." Vriska retorted.

"Sure, but I think for now, it would be better if we kept movin'. You can practice when we rest tonight."

So that's what they did, and the Handmaid was relieved when they left behind the smell of mould. Later that night when the stopped, and enjoyed a meal of tinned pears, Vriska continued to try using the vision eightfold.

**== Cut to the chase!**

A few nights after the first attempt, she finally cracked it, and then, with the use of the Handmaid's telekinesis, made her first attempt of drawing the tracker out from her arm.

It was painful, and Vriska had placed a piece of cloth in her teeth to bite down on as she rummaged about with the telekinesis. The pain helped keep her mind sharp and focused though.

Thankfully, the tracker was the size of approximately a quarter of her little finger nail, though; drawing it out was relatively easy because of this.

The hardest part so far was removing it from the muscle it had been injected in, and that involved a sort of blunt mental cutting which brought cerulean tears to the girls eyes. Once free however, all she had to do was attempt to relax the muscles of her forearm, and tease the tracker out from between them, which was more uncomfortable and weird than painful.

When done with this, a visible lump was visible under her skin, at which point Sollux sterilised a knife with his optic blasts and sliced open her skin enough for Vriska to bring it out with the telekinesis.

Done.

Vriska slumped to the ground, and Tavros, who was seated to her left caught her head just before it hit the ground.

"Thanks, Tavros." she muttered, a little out of it, before sinking into a deep sleep.

Meanwhile, the Handmaid sat up straight from her previously slouched position, and rubbed her forehead. "That was horrid."

The bloodied tracker was on the floor, and none of the conscious four knew what to do with it. The Handmaid was a little concerned that something bad could happen if it was destroyed, however, and so instead decided to throw it far down one of the tunnels branching off nearby. Better safe than sorry.

It was two days after removing her own tracker, that Vriska felt well enough to attempt removing the tracker in Tavros's arm. Thankfully, this was a lot easier for her and it was done with a lot less effort due to the lack of pain. It went so well, in fact, that she got halfway through the removal of Sollux's tracker, before passing out from exhaustion.

The next day, she finished off removing the tracker in Sollux's arm, and was about to attempt to start the Handmaid's, but was stopped.

"Kid, I don't think that'll work on me. My tracker is in a very different place."

"Where?"

The Handmaid pondered for a moment, then said, "I do not know."

"Well then we'll have to find it!" said Vriska.

But not that day.

After somehow managing to convince the Brit that she should not attempt to search for the tracker at that moment, they pushed onwards.

It was another two days before they realised that the path they were on was gradually taking them upwards, and another two after that one that they noticed a distinct rise in temperature.

When walking, their bodies began to feel damp again from the heat of their body and the heat of the air around them. They had forgotten what it was like to sweat, yet none were sure whether they necessarily welcomed the sensation.

However, the nights were still cold, and Vriska had found herself 'accidentally' pressing her back up against Tavros' back in the middle of the night on a number of occasions. Just doing that, combined with her blanket, was enough to ensure she got a decent nights sleep ( as opposed to spending several hours cold and unable to sleep).

Warmth over pride. Though she always made sure to back off again when she awoke to warm up her calf muscles.

The second hidden store room was found a few days after the increase in heat. Even with her improved sight, Vriska had trouble spotting it. But once found, they entered the room.

Unlike the other hideout, this one had barely any supplies in. Yet the Handmaid felt like another opening was close by, so they rested there for a day, eating the few supplies that were left.

Annoyingly for all of them, Vriska still had not managed to locate the area where the Handmaids tracker was.

Group Eight had gotten very fond of the older woman without realising it, and were aghast at the idea of leaving her behind, which is what she had been suggesting.

She had a point though. They would be unable to leave the tunnels with her in their midst, as the tracker would immediately let the Condesce where they were, and they would be punished to the very brink of death for certain.

But again, the idea of leaving her behind…

Instead, a plan was made.

Like the Handmaid had suspected, an opening was indeed nearby, and unlike the previous ones they had discovered, this one led through a manhole cover onto dry land, as Vriska discovered.

In the distance, a shimmer of water could be seen, so extensive that it could well have been the sea, yet she knew that it was simply the now flooded plains they had once resided under.

All around were somewhat decayed building and heavy lifting machinery, possibly from the early 2000's. The air was still and hot, and it was clear to her that no one had been around these parts for a long time.

Vriska grinned.

Perfect.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Wow, so its been over a year since I last updated this, I am truly very very very sorry that I let it go so long without an update, and if there are still fans of this clinging on then you are amazing and I love you all uvu

It started with writers block, and then my course got a whole lot more intense and I wasn't able to write anymore because of the time, and then over the summer holidays, I have no excuse other than that I drifted out of the homestuck fandom due to a couple of reaaally bad members of the fandom that really put me off. But that's all in the past and I'm no longer going to think of them.

I wasn't lying when I said I wasn't going to give up on this until the end. I finally had some free time this week after finishing a horrid project at uni, read through my whole fic and continued writing it. Hopefully this chapter isn't too different to the rest (or bad aaa)! Though I think some OOC is inevitable considering the fact that I haven't read homestuck since august and have only heard summaries of recent events from my boyfriend haha (I swear I will catch up)

But yeah, I will try my very best to get a fortnightly update going again, but if university projects get intense then it may slip a little again, sorry :c

As always, thank you so much for reading! (ill get to replying to the reviews from previous chapters soon 3 )

As a response to guest reviews that are high up and recent:

The Anastasia thing was just a silly little blip for the tyrian blood. I'm aware that its unlikely that she had any children or escaped, but I know there was all the stuff about her possibly escaping? Or maybe not! History wasn't my strong point :P either way, I figured it didn't matter a massive amount given all the other weird stuff in here like mutants and trolls and stuff hehe, but thank you for pointing it out anyway! c:

To the people not wanting loads of beta kid stuff, sorry but they're staying! I'd always intended to bring them in at some point, yet don't worry, as they will not appear a massive amount.

And sorry to everyone who doesn't like the characterisations of all the trolls now, or the time skip. I tried to only change them a small amount, yet it seems that its something that everyone is really upset with, which is a shame :c though the time skip has happened, and again, it was something that was always going to happen. Don't think that tavros is going to be a cocky asshole the whole time though, it was an act similar to how he was acting around Jade when he was flirting with her. I thought this was somewhat obvious but I guess not? Sorry I guess :c

At the end of the day though, I am just a fanfiction writer, not Andrew Hussie, and while I strive to do the best work I can, and get them as accurate as I can, at the end of the day, unless I write out a word for word script of homestuck, its not going to happen. If people give me little tips for specific things they see wrong with some of the characters though, then I'm happy to try and fix it! But a lot of characterisation is also just up to personal opinion at the end of the day (eg. some gamtav shippers may have a different interpretation of tavros' and vriska's personalities and interactions than I would as a tavris shipper).

A lot of it is relative is basically what im trying to say about some of the characterisation, and especially the timeskip stuff. Making up two years of growth for characters that aren't your own is always hard. I guess some people may just find this to be a bunch of excuses? IDK, think what you will at the end of the day. Again though, if there is something specific that is bugging you about one of the characters then feel free to let me know (be polite though haha, taking time out from a really stressful course to write is just for fun, so rude reviews would be a massive downer o: )

(i'll stop waffling now!)


	25. Bridges made and broken

A quick apology for how long this has taken to get written. I go into more depth at the end for the reasons for the delay but I figured I should start with one too. Characters may well be somewhat out of character in this because of the update gaps, and if they are, I am sorry :( anyway, on with the fic!

* * *

><p>The heat was almost unbearable in the direct sunlight, but under the small amount of shade offered by trees, one could cope.<p>

Deciding who to send out to explore was tricky. The obvious choice was Sollux and Vriska, due to Vriska's manipulation skills, and then Sollux for his quick thinking and no nonsense attitude when it came to the blue-blood. Yet both the Handmaid and Tavros worried of how much would actually be achieved through such a duo. It was apparent that Sollux still held a deep rooted hatred for Vriska, as she had slain Aradia (and used Sollux's own body to do so).

There was no use sending out Tavros with her, as they all knew that Vriska would quite likely bully him, and it was not a fate that the other two wished upon him.

After processing such information, then logically it would have made sense to send the Handmaid out with Vriska. Yet since they still could not locate the tracking device within her, it was impossible.

Eventually, it ended up having to be sorted out with a game of rock, paper, scissors.

Sollux lost with scissors, Tavros won with rock, and Vriska was in a mood for the rest of the day at how neither wanted to go exploring with her.

The Handmaid made them both swear that they would not fight, then let them leave.

Equipped with a pack of food, a blanket and some water each (though seeing as they were only supposed to be taking a quick look around the area, the supplies were for emergency only), Vriska and Sollux left the hidden room and began their journey to see what the local area was like.

Admittedly, wandering around in broad daylight was probably not the best idea in the world, and after five minutes of it, the pair returned, suggesting instead that they waited until dusk before exploring. For it was too hot, and also made them more likely to be spotted.

Tavros, however, was still adamant that it would be safer to explore in the day. Apparently big cats and other dangerous animals came out at night in the deserts of the southern states of the US. Vriska boasted that her vision was just as good as theirs at night now, so they need not worry. Sollux reminded her that while she may have good vision, it did not mean that she was going to be able to pick up a stalking wild cat. The Handmaid told them to stop arguing and start coming up with a solution, and that was the end of that.

Ignoring Tavros' anxieties, at about dusk, the pair set off again, armed only with Sollux's optic blasts and Vriska's fluorite octet.

With Vriska leading, Sollux was left to keeping a lookout, but thankfully it seemed that no people were out that day.

Beyond the heavy lifting machinery was a small lightly forested area, populated mostly half dead trees, and a number of hardy cacti. The twigs and dead leaves beneath their feet were incredibly dry, as one would expect, and crunched and snapped loudly wherever they went.

They never saw a big cat, much to Vriska's disappointment. They did however, see a common house cat that had turned feral.

"Do you think you can eat cactuses?" Vriska asked Sollux after twenty minutes of wandering. She had gotten thirsty, despite how the temperature had dropped considerably as they went, yet did not want to drink from the water bottle just yet. The cacti they passed looked juicy and full of water, and the idea of eating something fresh after weeks of only tinned or dried food seemed like heaven on earth… even if it was a cactus…

He gave her a fed up look, which soon changed to a frown as he said, "Yeah, actually."

They went to go inspect one of the many succulent looking cacti.

"Thethe oneth are edible. It's a prickly pear," he decided, then realised they had no way to harvest them without getting a multitude of spikes in their fingers… or so he suspected. Sollux was fairly certain that these fruit, and the edible stalks, were covered in fine prickles. But he was not certain. Luckily for him, he had a test subject. "Vrithka, get thethe oneth. I'm gonna look for thomething to carry them in."

"Why not our bags?" she replied with a confused frown.

Sollux gave her a withering stare, "I'd rather not get cactuth all over my stuff, but don't let me hold you back."

"Fuck you." Vriska spat, and turned quickly to hide her angry flush, and marched back towards the cacti. Walking about all day in such a state of dehydration was messing with her concentration.

She reached out to grab one of the bulbous red fruit, and found to her horror that what she had taken to be mere lumps on the prickly pears surface was actually a cluster of fine spikes.

"Sollux!" she shrieked furiously. "Did you know about the fucking prickles?"

"I do now," he shrugged, and continued looking around for scraps of fabric.

Their trek continued for a while further until they stumbled across a railway track. Neither had seen a real one before, as they were no longer commonplace in cities, though Vriska recognised it after a few seconds.

"If we follow this far enough we'll find people. Maybe," she said. "Though I have no idea which side to follow."

"We can't go looking like thith anyway,"

Vriska frowned with confusion, then looked down at her grey hands and long yellow nails. All of the time she had spent at T.R.O.L.L had made her forget that most people would run at the sight of her mutation. She clenched her hands into fists.

She turned to Sollux with her trademark smirk. "Well then, we'll just have to figure out how to look like normal people."

Sollux snorted. "Good luck with that. You haven't got a fucking chance."

"Not with that attitude," she replied mockingly, then placed her hands on the wooden fence that separated them from the tracks. Yet as she was about to jump over, Sollux places his hand on her shoulder.

"We can't go now. We need to get back to Tavroth and HM," he reminded. At this, she turned back to face Sollux, glaring at him with a pronounced pout of annoyance.

"So what? A cripple and a woman who cant leave those tunnels without having the fish bitch know where we are? Why should someone as gorgeous and smart as I am have to put up with a bunch of losers like you?"

Sollux was confused at the 'fishbitch' but ignored it for now. "Well why don't you go then? It'th not like you fucking need uth. You'd probably jutht end up killing another one of uth anyway."

Her eyes narrowed. "You don't understand what was going on for a fucking second, Sollux."

"What ithn't there to underthtand? You uthed me to murder one of my clothetht friends."

"You know, I'm not obliged to tell every fuckwit why I do things. But you really wanna know why I did it?" she snarled. "Fine."

"Vrithka. There ith nothing you could thay that would make me forgive what you did."

"No, you shit-for-brains. You are going to listen. You think that Doc Scratch runs this whole gig right? You couldn't be more wrong. It's run by this insane tyrian-blood, and when she asks you to do something you can do absolutely fucking nothing but obey. She told me that if I killed Aradia, then I could get Tavros' legs and my arm and eye back. And even without those perks, it's hardly as if I had a choice."

"You killed Aradia jutht so you could get thothe trivial thingth back?"

"Bluh! Being able to walk is hardly trivial you piece of shit. But seeing as all of you despise me despite how I did everything I could to help you, I should just fucking leave."

There was silence as Sollux thought about the information he had just been given. Vriska was right, he had no idea about this strange tyrian-blood she had spoken of… and yet it made sense. And while he would never truly forgive Vriska for making him murder Aradia… applying Vriska's warped logic to the situation did result in proof that she genuinely cared for their well being. Despite it being shown in a truly despicable manner.

"Wait."

For a while it seemed as if the blue-blood was going to ignore his words and head on down the track anyway. She had no real attachments to any of her three companions, she told herself, and thus she had no reason to stuck around them.

But that was untrue.

Vriska truly valued the snarky friendship that had sparked between the Handmaid and herself. Much of the same could be said about her relationship with Sollux before the Aradia incident. And then there was Tavros, which in reality was a whole other kettle of fish that Vriska had no intention of addressing.

And so she let go of the fence and turned her back on the tracks.

"Finally realised how much you need me-"

"Don't you fucking dare," he said. And so, realising how tense the boy was, she stopped talking.

The walk back to the tunnels was long and silent. Though there was a sense of understanding between the two mutants that had not been there before.

Thanks to Sollux's good memory, they found the manhole back to the Handmaid and Tavros, and as Sollux was about to enter, he felt Vriska's hand on his arm.

A strange unintelligible mutter left her lips.

"What?"

"You fucking well heard it, and there's no way I'm repeating that," she snarled.

He genuinely had not. But judging by Vriska's embarrassment, she could only have said one thing. Sorry.

Sorry could never replace Aradia, or take back the nights he lay curled up loathing and wanting to destroy his very body for killing her, or heal the mental damage that had been inflicted. But it was genuine.

The first rays of morning sun hit the skin on Sollux's face, and promptly vanished as he descended back down into the underworld of North America. Unlike Vriska who was basking in the light for 'just one more minute', he was used to spending days locked up in his room, and in theory could last just fine without the sun for another few weeks. But he nevertheless spent a few more seconds looking up at the sunrise; enjoying the bird song and the gorgeous colours; before heading down the ladder.

Vriska followed shortly behind him, and the manhole was closed once more.

* * *

><p><strong>== well that was weird…<strong>

Name not recognised.

**== Urghh, fine, I'll give you a name. What happened with Jade?**

You are now Jade Harley, and you are currently locked in a room all alone

It had been three days since the fighting, and Jade could not get the images out of her head. The mutants, the rainbow drinkers, those weird bug like creatures, the death, the flooding, the teleportation, the MUTANTS and all that had happened with Dave…

The Condesce had not let her visit this strange other Dave, John or Rose even once.

And she had _promised_ as well!

Though in all honesty, Jade had not really believed that the Condesce would deliver. While she had seemed all sickly sweet and pleased when they spoke, it was clear that she was still a complete and utter bitch.

Her nails began to leave dents in her palms as she stared up at the ceiling.

Jade wanted to go home. But she could not because there was no home to go to. The Condesce had made sure of that.

Were the others even alive still? They could be dead for all she knew, and maybe they were. And all she was doing was sitting in this stupid fucking room doing diddly fucking squat.

**== Look around the room**

You've looked around the room hundreds of times already.

**== Inspect the lock**

Like that's going to do anything…

**== Get your attitude together young lady!**

You decide to get up and inspect the lock, but unsurprisingly the door on your side lacks even a handle. See?

Footsteps began making their way down the corridor outside… and predictably passed right on by… like always.

Another day passed before anything of interest happened, and that was when an errand boy appeared, informing her that he had arrived to take her to the Condesce. It was going to be a long walk, if Jade recalled correctly.

"What's your name?" Jade asked hesitantly.

The errand boy did not reply.

She waited a few more seconds, then added, "Did you hear me?"

Ignored once more, Jade decided to heartily say 'fuck that' to any further attempts at conversation with the staff at the freak show that was the retainment organisation.

What kind of name was that anyway? Evidently one created by someone struggling to come up with an acronym for the word troll. So, it was probably made by the Condesce then.

After a good quarter of an hour of wandering they arrived before the Condesce's door, and Jade was shoved in.

Unlike with the errand boy, Jade knew better than to speak without permission around her Imperial Condesce. The fishbitch in question was looking hideously pleased with herself; something that Jade found repulsive, due to knowing the reason behind her smugness. Jade wondered how many had died… and how many at her own hands.

Best not dwell on such matters.

"Jane, was it?" the Condesce slurred. It sounded as if the mutant had been drinking a bit… or perhaps she was just tired.

"Jade," the islander corrected.

"Whatever. You displayed your power on the battlefield, did you not?"

"I'm… I don't know," Jade muttered, for truly, she did not know, and so much shit had happened recently, and honestly she did not have a clue about almost everything going on around her.

The Condesce laughed loudly.

"You don't know? Are all you humans such idiots?" she mocked, then leant forward. "Did you teleport, or did you not teleport? It's not hard!"

"I said I don't know," Jade replied again, her voice becoming terse.

"I said I don't know!" the Condesce repeated in an offensive babyish tone, then returned to her normal voice. "Well you knowing or not is really all that's going to keep you alive, so you are going to have to think long and hard about it."

"What?"

"Kid, you are only alive right now because your powers could be useful to me. If it was not you who did the teleport thing, but that dead alternate version of the rust-blood you were with, then I'll give you to the rainbow drinkers as a toy."

"No! Fuck you!" Jade slammed her fingers down on the desk and stood up from her chair. So quickly, in fact, that it tottered about on two legs for a few seconds, and then crashed to the ground, filling the silent room entirely with noise.

For a few seconds, the only sound in the room was a slow tick tock tick from an antique clock on the Condesce's desk.

It was in these few seconds that Jade would have regretted her actions, had the past events not transpired. So instead she stood glaring at the tyrian-blood before her, breathing heavily and trembling all over.

"Excuse me?" the Condesce asked, her mocking grin now a threatening and entirely menacing smile that almost, but not quite, hid her fury. "Would you like to repeat that for me?"

"No I wont fucking repeat it, you fuckass! How fucking dare you! You expect me to be placid and obey you as I watched as you ruin my home and kill people and kidnap my friends? And then you have the fucking _audacity_ to tell me that unless I complete an impossible task, that you're going to kill me?"

The Condesce had gone somewhat pink in the face. An angry flush, Jade assumed.

And then, she felt a sharp stinging sensation on her cheek. And then another. And another.

But Jade was not going to stand for this, and grabbed the Condesce's arm, adrenaline and fury pumping through her system.

"You-"

Suddenly, they were somewhere completely different.

Storm clouds cloaked the sky and horizon as far as the eye could see, and lashings of rain slapped the pair in the face. They had arrived on the plateau of land that Jade had last teleported to.

At this, the Condesce's previously furious face turned to a sly smile. She did not say a word, but honestly Jade was glad for that.

The tyrian-blood made several glances at the ocean while they waited to be picked up. It seemed that she was longing to swim, though Jade could not be certain… although there had been strange rumours circulating about mutants found with gills. Perhaps she was one of them. After all that the girl had seen in the past few weeks, it would not surprise her

As before, a helicopter soon appeared to whisk them back to the base.

After a few minutes of silence, the Condesce's phone rang. From what Jade overheard, something strange had happened in the room they had been in previously. Something had emerged from whatever rupture in space she had created to move such a distance in such a short amount of time.

Oh.

The journey was spent in silence, following

An errand boy greeted them at the entrance to the facility. "I have been instructed to warn you of a possibly harmful creature roaming the facility."

Jade pitied the poor thing immensely at the look the Condesce gave him.

"You mean to tell me that this situation has not been dealt with?"

'Don't shoot the messenger' was clearly not a phrase the Condesce knew, as she backhanded the boy. Yet he got back onto his feet in a matter of seconds, the eerie smile never once leaving his face.

"This way, your highness."

While they walked back to Jades cell, the girl wondered what manner of creature she had… created? Released?

Hell if she knew, though she was certainly intrigued to see the creature, once it had been properly confined of course. Though it would probably turn out to be something mundane from her island; a gull or insect perhaps.

Jade was returned to her cell without a hitch, however, and the errand boy and the Condesce continued down the corridor on their hunt for the missing creature.

On the table was a plate of dauphinoise potatoes, with a thick savoury stew full of vegetables and a meat Jade could not for the life of her identify. Teleporting had taken a lot of energy from her, and so she instantly sat at the table, scoffing down the meal.

In her hunger (and admittedly bad manners from having grown on an island with only her and her semi batty grandfather), she cared little about watching where the sauce from the stew was going, and before she knew it, ended up with a large splodge of gravy running down the front of her overalls.

Pouting, she stood up and walked over to the bathroom section of the cell.

It was a simple, and rather embarrassing affair; especially when she shared the room with John and Dave. At the far corner of the room was a toilet, next to a sink, with a shitty plastic mirror hung above it. It was the sort that could not shatter, and thus could not be used as a weapon.

Chilled, fresh water flowed from the tap. Water from deep underground, though given the new covering of saltwater, the Condesce would probably have to consider a new source.

Jade filled the sink with water, then got to work splashing and attempting to rinse off the sauce. She was absorbed in the work at hand, and after a few minutes of intense scrubbing, the stain left the fabric.

Satisfied, she straightened her back up, and took a quick peek at the mirror… and then froze on the spot.

Behind her…

Behind her was a strange pulsing _thing_.

Just over her left shoulder, it shimmered and writhed in a somewhat spherical shape like nothing she had seen before, in harsh shades of white and blue, and yet at the very same time it seemed so soft. Its nature was hypocrisy; everything it stood for it also denied. There was an aura to it that screamed of how it _should not be there_.

Yet there it was.

Her fingers itched for her rifle she knew she did not have, while her lungs soon starved for oxygen. Jade dared not breathe.

And then, she slowly turned.

The thing stayed put. It did not lunge or attack her, yet that unsettled her more in a way. It had to be what had escaped from the rift in space, there was no doubt about it.

**== Talk to it**

You are not doing ANY such thing, even if you COULD move, which you cannot due to sheer terror

As if sensing the girls fear, the thing pulsed a soft, green light.

**== Say something!**

"What…" Jade squeaked, then cleared her throat. "What are you?"

It did not reply, though Jade expected as such. As if a trans-dimensional being would be able to speak English!

Pulsing a somewhat jittery series of edges, the thing dropped a few inches, as if ill. It would make sense for it not to be able to survive long in this dimension.

At that moment, the door slammed open, and several armed members of the retainment organisation sped in, yanking Jade out of the way and surrounding the being.

For a few moments, the air was silent and dead, save for the hushed whispering of the guards breath. Then, with the crackling static of an order, gunfire filled the room, followed by a terrified, screaming chitter.

Thud.

Jade leapt to her feet, peering through the gaps in the guards circle to see what was left of the being.

Thin, chiffon like skin lay draped over what appeared to the skeleton of the thing, which was a bright blue, spherical representation of… a spirograph? Whichever angle she looked at it from, it appeared to keep the shape of a flat spirograph, and yet she _knew_ it was a 3D shape; she could see that from how the skin hung about the core. Another interesting feature she noticed was the lack of internal organs or damage. There was nothing but the skin and the skeleton.

Interesting.

The remains were carefully placed into an odd looking box, and the guards shuffled out as quickly as they appeared, leaving Jade alone, confused and frightened of what else could appear.

This was not fair! But then she was used to being alone, she guessed. Though she had Bec on her island at the very least. Here, she had nothing and no one.

Plus, she had demonstrated the ability to teleport, and that meant that the Condesce saw her as an important asset.

Fuck.

There would be no escape.

God, but she missed her dog.

* * *

><p><strong>== Be someone else<strong>

Name not recognised

**== Be someone we havn't visited in a while**

You are now Nepeta Leijon, and you have just been saved from the floods-

**== No, before then, when she found Equius and Aradiabot**

You are now Nepeta Leijon, and are about to walk in on your meowrail being passionately kissed by a robot resembling your dead friend.

After a days work clearing rubble and fixing homes, Nepeta liked to relax when she got in. For example, cooking and eating the meat she had caught, or napping on Equius' lap while he worked, or drawing images of her friends and the landscapes around them.

Work was sometimes rather stressful, and she occasionally dealt with people who took her and her teams work for granted, and insulted them, asking them to speed up, or do a better job. That day, was one such day.

When such a day had occurred, she was always thankful for the lack of drama that went on in the workshop she and Equius shared; and that the engineers who assisted finished and left before she returned.

As such, when she walked in, called out to Equius that she was back, and heard no response other than muffled voices, she was confused.

Nepeta could hear the voices coming from the Equius' personal work room in the basement, which made her doubly confused, as the only people allowed in there were herself and Equius, naturally. Furthermore, Equius was not one to talk to himself… or not so loudly anyway.

Tiptoeing towards the stairs as softly as she could, the girl held an ear in the direction of the noise, and noticed the dancing movement of shadows cast through the small gap at the base of the door.

What?

Her blades slid out from under her sleeves.

One voice was definitely Equius… and the other… a girl?

Barely containing a grin, Nepeta turned away from the door.

Equius had a girl round! She could barely believe it. After Aradia had died, Equius had become incredibly drawn into himself. Nepeta suspected for a while that the blue-blood might have had feelings for Aradia, and his reaction proved it.

Aradia's death had been taxing on all the trolls, and the members of Team Seven were no exception. Both of them missed her dearly, but it had been worrying to see how unable Equius had been to move on. No matter what Nepeta did, she could not get a permanent smile back on his face, even if it was just a little one.

But bringing home a girl!

It was a step in the right direction, and Nepeta was so very proud of Equius. It was purrfect.

Thinking of refreshments to offer her, the girl was just about to bounce into the kitchen when she heard the girl raise her voice.

'_Oh god oh god oh god_!' Nepeta screamed internally as she padded back to the top of the stairs, listening once more. '_If she's being a bitch to him because of his sweating problem I swear I will throw her out of the window personally_.'

"Get it out get it out get it out…" the girl with Equius shouted, and Nepeta recoiled a little, wondering what the implications of such a sentence meant, then berated herself, for she knew Equius, and knew that he would never do anything to harm someone.

But still… what on _earth_ was going on in there?

Crashing then suddenly filled the air, and the sound of skin being hit, and her eyes widened, a disgusted expression fixing itself on her face, and the decided _that was it_.

**== Go in!**

You do not need to be told twice.

Nepeta rushed down the stairs, swung the door open, and there, in the middle of the room was Equius being held in the arms of a robot…

And they were kissing?

"Um…" she stammered.

And then noticed the robot was some strange version of Aradia.

"Ummm…" She cleared her throat loudly, getting the attention of both robot and mutant. "Is there… is there something you want to tell me about, Equius?"

The boy looked at her with horror, and she then took in the large amount of fresh, blue blood staining the floor and walls, and how flushed her meowrail was.

"Should… should I come back later? Would, um, would that be fur the best?"

Scratch that, Nepeta decided, and left, not waiting for a response.

What the actual fuck.

Nepeta had tugged the hat on over her horns, and was already half way down the street before she realised that judging by the amount of blood on the floor, Equius could actually be in real trouble, and probably not just in the midst of some really kinky fetish… thing.

Thankfully, when she returned to Equius' study, heart pounding in her chest, she was merely greeted with the sight of her brother wiping up the copious amount of blood with a towel.

Aradiabot was no where to be seen.

Though he had heard her come in, he did not turn.

"Equius?" Nepeta said softly. "What was all that about?"

His shoulders dropped, and he hung his head forwards, creating a curtain of hair to hide his face.

At this, she hopped forwards, taking his hand and pulling him upright. He refused to look her in the eye, and she noticed how his trademark sunglasses were missing.

"What happened?" she asked again.

"I don't know…" he replied.

There was blood soaking his skin and clothes. Nepeta tutted, and sent him off to have a shower, assuring him that she would take care of the mess in exchange for the story. Clearly, something had gone very wrong with one of his plans.

Once she was certain the weird Aradiabot thing was no where to be seen, Nepeta scrubbed and cleaned the workshop until it was free of blood, nose wrinkling at the scent of detergent the whole time. Pounce de Leon joined her in this task to 'help', yet she was more of a hindrance than a help, and did nothing but lick the blood off the walls.

BLEH.

The olive-blood imagined that this must be how Equius felt whenever she 'helped' with his projects, by draping herself over his lap and fiddling with bits and bobs until he played with her. Though seeing as they were now the same height (her very welcome growth spurt was to thank for this) she probably should stop, but whatever.

Having cleaned all the blood up, Nepeta wandered to the bathroom, and knocked on the door.

"I'm coming in, so get decent!"

She counted loudly to five, then went in, and found Equius asleep on the floor with the shower still running.

"Equius!" she shouted, and nudged him with her foot until he woke up. "You're wasting all the water, you dummy!"

"Ex-excuse me…" he mumbled, embarrassed at being caught asleep in the shower. "Could you pass me some towels, please?"

"Vomits! Whoops, I need to stop mock narrating my actions," she giggled as she leant over and switched off the water. "As soon as you're dressed, we're going to have a talk about that robot, okay?"

"Okay…"

"Actually, where did it go?"

"She is probably not coming back. Do not worry," he said miserably.

Nepeta pouted, then handed him a pair of towels. Once Equius was dressed, he joined Nepeta on the sofa. Instantly, she took his face in her hands, and held her forehead against his.

And then, Equius told her what happened. About Aradia's ghost, and how she was living inside him for years, and the strange blueprints she had given him, and his horrible feelings for her… and the robot… Before long, Equius had his head on Nepeta's lap as they had a long due feelings jam.

They awoke the next morning to the sound of pounding on the door. Nepeta yawned, pushing herself back from where she had previously been pressed close to her moirails back and stood up to check her face in the mirror.

The thick foundation on her face had not smudged too much overnight, and so she decided that she would be perfectly able to answer the door, after getting her hat of course. She shooed Equius away into his room due to his grey skin being on show, and then went to the door.

Before opening the door, she checked through the peep hole, and flinched.

It was Aradiabot.

"What do you want?!" Nepeta shouted.

"Let me in," a monotonous voice replied.

"Purrlease go away, you've caused enough damage!"

"Let me in,"

"You've got a body now! Purrlease go," Nepeta begged, but Aradiabot was having none of it.

"Nepeta, please. You do not understand," the robot said, and it was a testament to Equius' skill at robotics that her face managed to portray such urgency.

The girl sighed, and opened the door, prompting the robot to quickly enter before Nepeta changed her mind.

"We do not have much time. Grab everything of value to you and put it in a rucksack. I will find Equius and relay the message," she ordered.

"What do you mean?"

"I am truly sorry, but we do not have time to explain. You will not return after we leave though."

The sincerity in her artificial voice swayed the olive-blood, and after grunting angrily, she rushed into her bedroom to grab her things.

What was she to pack? After a short period of deliberation, she grabbed a few trinkets she had received as gifts from Equius and the people she had helped, and shoved them in a bag full of basic survival gear. After the time spent in the retainment organisation, she had secretly planned for such an event. One could never be too careful.

Nepeta fixed her retractable 'wolverine-lass' claws onto her wrists, and then threw on her favourite coat and the rucksack… and then swore as she realised she forgot to pack foundation. Luckily there was a small amount of space in the pockets, and so she crammed in as much as physically possible.

"Equius?" she called. "Equius!"

"In the basement!"

There, she found Aradiabot spread out on the worksurface, with Equius hurriedly fixing a metal plate over her chest. He had opted to ditch the human disguise due to time, and had a heavy looking rucksack on the floor beside him.

Interestingly, Aradiabot was drumming her fingers impatiently as she waited for Equius to be done with his work. Nepeta still did not trust her though, regardless of how human she appeared. She was still a robot. Unlike Equius who had the proof of Aradia living in his mind for years, Nepeta only had his story to go on, and was well aware of his crush on the girl… for all she knew, Aradiabot could just be some perverse way of fulfilling those fantasies. She sincerely hoped not, but she would first have to be convinced of there being some part of the real Aradia in that robotic husk.

"Done," Equius announced, at which Aradia leapt up from the table and tore out of the room in a hurry, heading for one of the windows.

"Merde!" she swore at whatever she was looking at, and rushed back to them. "Have you got everything?"

"Yes," Nepeta affirmed, with Equius nodding. They followed the robot to the roof, and both winced as she violently ripped the door to the balcony open.

Oh.

In the distance, they could see the ocean. And that was bullshit because they were miles inland…

"What is that?" Equius asked.

"The Condesce has decided to flood this planet. Lets go," the robot replied, then grabbed the two trolls, holding one under each arm. It was then when Nepeta realised that Pounce was still out in the garden, and screamed.

"Let me go! I need to get Pounce, let me go!"

"There is no time Nepeta. I am sorry," Aradiabot then made an impossible leap onto the highest part of their building, and then that of their neighbors house, and the grocery opposite, and then pshooooo off into the sky, clasping Nepeta tightly as she wriggled and clawed and swore and screeched for her pet.

But it was too late, and Nepeta could only scream as she watched the waters close in on their house and Pounce de Leon.

Aradiabot's face remained neutral. Nepeta would hate her, but her life had been saved, as had Equius'.

"We could have gone back, you could have carried her!" Nepeta sobbed. "We could have! You're carrying Equius' entire tool shed!"

"I could not carry your pet as well. I am sorry," She was lying but Nepeta did not need to know that. There was simply no way that she would be able to safely support both two humans _and_ a massive cat creature that would likely turn frightened and aggressive in the air.

"I hate you!"

The robot's face froze, something that neither of the pair she was carrying noticed. She then smoothly replied, "I know."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** I am back! Sorry again for such a long break. Uni is crazy intense. I'm not sure if I mentioned this last time either, but I was having truly horrible times at my accommodation thanks to a mentally abusive (not sure if right term or not, but best I can think of) housemate which rendered me miserable, and basically in a really dark place for the past few months. Thankfully the university moved me to another room in another hall, everything is safe and I'm starting to emotionally recover.

Either way, I'm feeling secure enough to be able to be creative again, so yay! Got a 1st for my first year at uni too, so the delay was definately worth it for me, though I still wish i had time to write.

(and I'm really sorry if all the characterisation is messed up! I've started reading it again, but it's still not very fresh at all in my mind. Also I have a lot of projects going on this summer, so I will try my best to get chapters out, but I cannot promise super regular ones, sorry. Also I'm going to try and cut down on the length of this fic, this was originally half done, but I'm going to try and have this being 2/3rds done, and get rid of pointless waffley sections of plot haha)

Thanks for reading! 38)


	26. More villages

**== Tell us more about Jade!**

You are now Jade Harley, and you are facing a dilemma.

Jade was in trouble. No matter what situation her personal trainer was throwing at her, she could not (or rather _would_ not) teleport again.

The situation with the spirograph creature had disturbed her more than anyone would have thought, and the lack of sleep only heightened the fear and paranoia that another creature was out there hunting for her.

There had been two occasions where she had teleported, yet only one sprite accounted for.

Deciding that Doc Scratch would be a better front for the frazzled girl, the Condesce decided that she would no longer talk to Jade unless she continued showing no improvement. Pissing off the lime-blood until she flipped and teleported was certainly fun, but the Condesce could not afford to find herself in a strange new locations at random. It was too risky.

One such meeting with Doc Scratch was where Jade was discussing 'long-term plans' and 'her commitment to the organisation'. It was all bullshit, and even the strange man sat before Jade knew it; she could see his lips twitching at the corners as he spoke.

"You realise, of course, that we have been incredibly kind to you?" Doc Scratch said, looking at her with that oh so concerned look. "Government officials had been searching for you for quite a while, and had they discovered you after your mutation began to set in fully… well. I daren't think what would have happened!"

Jade just stared at the desk.

She genuinely was not sure whether this strange man scared her more than the Condesce. Sure, the Condesce was powerful and crazy, but this man had invaded her island sanctuary, and somehow that felt more violating and terrifying than the Condesce forcing her to remain silent with her powers.

"I don't care," the girl replied.

"Ms Harley, I want to help you, I truly do," he reminded in a suave tone. "Would you feel more comfortable if we invited in that delectab- I mean dedicated friend of yours, Ms LaLonde in?"

At this, she felt her stomach turn. What was this creepy doing with Rose? He was at least twenty years her senior!

"No. Don't you dare touch her, you fuckass," she snarled.

"Please excuse my slip of the tongue. I only meant that she has whole heartedly thrown herself into working for our cause,"

"You're a liar,"

The pale man laughed. "My dear, you have been trapped on an island in the middle of the Pacific for years. The idea that you think you can read other human being's expressions is hilarious, frankly."

"Fuck off,"

"So you don't want to see your friend? Well, I _am_ shocked," he said in a mocking tone. "But regardless of this, I do hope to see some improvement in your behaviour soon."

"Why should I care. You've probably killed Rose and John,"

"I can personally assure you that they are both alive and well," Doc Scratch insisted, "And as for Dave, I have heard they are concocting a number of little experiments on his body. We may be able to bring him back."

Jade froze. This had to be a bluff, there was no way they would bring back the alternate Dave over their more important personnel who had died.

"You're lying,"

"Jade, my dear, why would I lie on such a subject? A boy with the ability to time travel is an incredibly valuable asset for the Imperious Condesce, as I am sure you can understand. As is a girl with the ability to teleport," he said slyly. "Not that we are placing you under any sort of pressure, of course."

"Oh, of course not,"

Doc Scratch sighed deeply, then said, "If you do not show improvement very soon, then the Condesce is going to place you in the hands of her scientists. You do not want that, I do not want that, so can we please reach an agreement here? We are both fully aware of the fact that the only reason you have not shown any improvement is because you do not want to. Stop holding back, and I promise you that you will remain unharmed."

Jade took one of the liquorish sweets off his desk, popped one in her mouth and then immediately gagged.

"What is it with you children and liquorish?" Doc scratch frowned. "Either way, you are dismissed."

"Just like that?

"Does anything more need to be said?"

The usual errand boy came to collect her, and escorted her back to her room. Her room to Doc Scratch's office was a long one, and without conversation they grew very boring very fast.

For such a fancy looking facility, the power sure was shitty. Apparently their main generator bust, or at least those were the rumours she heard when guards spoke casually outside her door. It was never useful information, but rumours were still interesting enough.

While she may not have any idea what the Condesce was, or any of the mutants for that matter, she knew who was sleeping with who, and all the urban legends of the place.

Apparently, people had still been seeing what sounded like the spirograph creature in dark corridors and basement spaces… though that could just be imagination gone wild.

"Hey, have you ever seen the spirograph creature?" she asked the errand boy half-heartedly. Despite her previous vow not to bother talking to the staff, she still asked questions and babbled along as they walked. She was not sure whether they were the same ones, they all looked the same…

Either way, she had not been expecting a reply.

But to her surprise, he did just that, "I saw a creature a number of sleeps ago." His voice was surprisingly low and harsh, compared to the pre-recorded sounding sentences his lot usually said. "Pink and cat like, with… tentacles…"

"Huh?" Jade stopped, then jogged to catch up again. "You spoke!"

And then, within the space of a second, the lime-blood was kicked hard in the shins and forced to her knees. The errand boy pinned her to the wall, no change in his sweet face, then attempted to beat her.

Luckily, Jade knew self defence well, and for a few moments, fought back viciously, and yet the normally placid boy's skill was greater (though admittedly his strength was no match).

A familiar green crackle began to sound, and before she understood that it was the sound of her powers charging up, she was interrupted.

"Do not show your power," the boy whispered at a barely audible level. "Convince her that you are useless, and she will send you away. You will not be harmed… too much."

It took her until the second sentence for her to realise the words were being spoken directly into her mind. At this, she flinched back, and her lack of concentration allowed him to give her a blow to the face, before a set of guards sped in and grabbed the boy.

He was forced to his knees, by two guards, then another approached from behind and shot him in the skull. The serene expression never left, not even in death.

"A defective. That shouldn't happen again, Ms Harley," the guard said, presumably the leader, then motioned for another errand boy to be called in.

The replacement soon arrived, and she was sent off with him, along with two of the guards to keep an eye on her.

This errand boy showed no signs of sudden violence, but then neither had the last. It was odd, but no doubt she would hear gossip about such matters within a week.

What had it all meant? Jade would have asked the guards, but they would be of no help if she was the one asking the questions. Worth a try though.

"Hey, so what happened just then?" she demanded to the guard on her left.

She chuckled, replying, "We can't just go about telling you all the ins and outs of this place."

"Why? Let me guess, you'd have to kill me?" Jade said snarkily.

"Yes," the other guard snapped, clearly in a bad mood. The lime blood pouted, but had not expected anything else.

A sleepless night was spent following the errand boy's words: partially because she was covered in painful bruises, but mostly wondering what on earth he could have meant, and whether or not he was to be trusted.

'_What do I have to lose_?' pondered Jade. At this point, there was no where she could go. If she teleported again, she risked letting more of those creatures loose and as a result, having them killed. It was something she did not want on her conscience. Furthermore, the teleporting would inevitably be used to harm the innocent people of earth even more! No.

Then again though, could she trust the words of a so called 'defective' errand boy clone? Jade of all people knew that the Condesce had her fingers in every pie, thus this could just be some sort of strange plan to get her to show her powers again (as she almost had in the confrontation). There was also the very real risk that if she showed no signs of improvement then the Condesce would punish her, as Doc Scratch had informed her.

But… if there was a chance that she would not be harmed for not using the powers, then she would have to take it. Especially if she could be moved away from this god-awful place. Especially if it meant she could save lives.

The next morning she emerged from her prison cell, renewed in strength and determination.

With her new found firm resolve against showing any hint of her powers, they seemed to leave her almost completely. It turned out that the Condesce was a lot more impatient than Jade has previously thought, as after the second day of no improvement, Jade was taken to a room with various scientific equipment, of which she could only identify a few. What she could identify, however, seemed to involve the study of the brain and nervous system. Interesting.

Surprisingly, none so far seemed like the mad scientist type. A middle-aged woman sat her down and explained to her all the tests they would be running, how much they would hurt and how long they would take.

First, she had to strip to her underwear to check for any of the usual symptoms the mutants showed. When nothing was found, they gave her a mint coloured shift to wear and sent her for a full body scan.

The tests took several hours, and though none so far were more painful than the challenges she and Dave were given by the Handmaid, Jade still wished them along quicker. So many assorted fluid and tissue samples had been removed from her that felt she ill and restless. How she resented Doc Scratch for removing her from her island paradise.

After another hour of testing, these ones involving small electrodes, she met with a cerulean blooded doctor, who quizzed her about her powers, and her life on the island. At this point, she was so woozy she did not have it in her to not reply, let alone be snarky.

"I'd like you to take a good look at something for me please, Jade," he asked, and slid a piece of paper across the table to her.

On the page was a photo of John, looking beat down in a room similar to hers, his hair as greasy and disgusting as hers must have been with a black headband before him.

That was Rose's headband!

"I'm very sorry for this, but please understand that you must show improvement or you will end up going to the same place he will."

The man seemed genuinely sorry, and yet Jade could see something he could not – the determination in John's eyes.

"And he knows where he's going?" she said croakily.

"Yes."

That settled it. Jade supposed that answer was supposed to have scared her, but the look in John's eyes and the words of the errand boy steadied her.

* * *

><p>"Jade," Doc Scratch said to her the next day. "The results have shown that like Mr Egbert, you have shown no signs of further potential teleportation skills,"<p>

"John could teleport?"

"No, he has shown no skills at all, unlike you," he replied. "I guess we were mistaken. While you undoubtedly teleported twice, it seems you are now unable to call upon such powers. You are now useless to us,"

This was it.

"What are you going to do to me?"

Doc Scratch glanced at her, then sighed deeply. "While She has acknowledged that you are now a drain on time and resources, her Imperious Condesce has graciously agreed to let you and John live out the remainder of your lives in a remote village in the Colorado mountains."

Well, Jade had certainly not been expecting that.

"What?"

"We had a similar problem with some of our other charges. The Condesce would prefer to dispose of you, however as her advisor, I managed to convince her of your worth," Doc Scratch seemed pleased with himself, and for once Jade did not mind the smugness. "As with our previous charges, you are not being sent anywhere remotely pleasant, but it is better than death, no?"

"That it is," she agreed, and yet wondered what a place that was not 'remotely pleasant' would be like. After this hellhole, Jade felt prepared for anything, frankly.

The preparation for the move was short, due to her lack of personal possessions, thus she arrived at the entrance to the facility with nothing but the clothes on her back.

John stood there, waiting for her, and upon seeing him, Jade ran forwards and pressed her face into the crook of his neck, hugging each other closely. She would not have gotten so emotional normally, but John was the most normal thing she had seen in a while…

Neither said a word, knowing that She was so close behind.

They let go of one another, and turned to face the Condesce, who was seeing them off in place of Doc Scratch.

"I had thought of simply letting the two of you off without a word, however you need to be reminded of the fact that you have _not_ escaped," She grinned, Her shark like teeth unnervingly close. "Where you are going is not a haven, but a prison. You are to stay there indefinitely, and take over a position that a previous employee of ours had."

"Which is?" John asked with a small but nonetheless hopeful smile on his face.

"You will work the village shop. Boring menial work, enjoy! Oh, and by the way, that project attempting to revive that blond friend of yours ultimately failed. He is now officially dead, and had you not chosen to teleport when you did, we could have saved him, lime blood. I hope you feel guilty for losing us our time traveller." the Condesce gave them a smirk. "But don't be sad! Here, take these to remember him by, they are all he had on him."

She handed over a small bag, which contained alternate Dave's shades, along with a few scraps of paper with incomprehensible scrawls and shitty drawings on, and then turned, sashaying off back into her facility, horns barely scratching the ceiling. Somehow Jade doubted that they were given those items from the goodness of the Condesce's heart. It was probably to break their spirit.

Once out of sight, they were each given several bags for the trip, which Jade gratefully accepted to fend off thinking about how the hope she had been fed had crashed and burnt. The Condesce was right… she had inadvertently killed alternate Dave.

The plane used was the same kind that transported the mutants over to the facility. It was miserably cold once they gained altitude, yet the journey was thankfully short. Once the blankets were handed to the pair, they sat close by one another, and swapped stories of their time apart.

John was devastated to hear the news about alternate Dave, yet seemed determined to believe that their Dave was still out there somewhere. Yet he inexplicably got incredibly excited when Jade described to him the Thing she encountered in her room.

"You got visited by like, a ghost or an alien!" he claimed. Jade laughed at this, and tried to brush it off, but he insisted on milking every last drop of information on it from her, much to her amusement.

Their journey was over after an hour, and the first thing the pair noticed once their plane began to descend once more was the rain. Though it was no where near the tropical downpours Jade experienced on the island, the constant drizzle and grey clouds made the otherwise pretty enough village seem abysmally miserable.

Dotted about most villages and landing strips would have been people, yet none were out, save for one woman they saw in the distance, who sped from one house and into another at break neck speed.

Once they got off the plane, the reason was soon apparent, as a drop of rain fell on the bare skin of John's hand, resulting in cursing and a few tears of pain in the corners of his eyes.

Acid rain.

Neither Jade nor John had never seen it so strong though…

They were quickly ushered down a number of narrow walkways before reaching the shop in the centre of the village, where they were left.

"Well, I guess this is it! We're stuck in the middle of no where with flesh eating acid falling from the sky…" Jade said.

"Still," replied John. "I'd rather be here than where we were before any day of the week,"

"Pfft! Who wouldn't though?"

Being around John cheered Jade up immensely, and the prospect of being stuck in the village seemed a whole lot more doable thanks to him. Though knowing that Rose was still stuck there alone with both Doc Scrach and the Condesce made their skin crawl with fear and revulsion. They would find a way to save Rose, and that was a promise.

The house was composed of two floors: downstairs, which was the shop floor, and then the first floor, which had been turned into a moderate flat. There was very little space for even one person to live there, let alone two, but John and Jade would have to make do. The kitchen, dining room, living room and bedroom (well a sofa bed) were essentially one room, with the bathroom being a small separate room at the back housing only a toilet, sink, mirror and shower in incredibly close quarters.

At the very least, they could be thankful that their relationship was platonic enough that sharing a bed with one another would not be awkward. John commented that they would probably be able to sell the sofa bed and buy a pair of singles soon anyway. Until then, they would have to make do.

Behind the house was a small walled garden, which both were surprised to see. Apparently whatever was in the acid rain only affected people. Plants were thriving in the garden, and John noticed a number of snails milling about in the rain.

It was while he was watching a snail trek across the patio that he heard Jade call for him.

"Check for bugs," she whispered to him.

"Well there's a whole bunch of snails back there…" At her exasperated look, he grinned. "Just kidding. I'll check the bathroom and kitchen, you check the rest."

To their surprise, the only cameras they found were those downstairs in the shop to prevent stealing. Of course that could mean that they were simply well hidden, but they doubted the Condesce was the sort to do subtle.

"What is this all about, Jade?"

"I don't know! I don't know if this is a switch up or some sort of cruel joke, but… I don't know!" she giggled nervously, pushing her hair up out of her face. John noticed then how she seemed to be cradling one of the bags they were given.

"Are you alright?"

To be safe, Jade steered John into the tiny bathroom, and upon placing the toilet seat down, sat on it. John was forced to retreat into the shower area, and hoped he did not switch it on by mistake.

If they had rigged up the rest of the apartment with cameras, then it was unlikely that the Condesce would leave them some privacy in the bathroom, but it was a small comfort that the pair needed.

"What's this all about?" he asked.

Still clutching the bag close to her chest, Jade sighed, and unzipped it, then pulled out what looked like… an egg?

"There was a note. Did you hear about how they were trying to resurrect the alternate Dave? Well they did it, they finally got an embryo to form… except for some reason he's in an egg? Can't say I know why that is, but anyway, this is one of the failed experiments who's egg shell cracked by mistake. I guess they gave up on this," Jade explained.

"Who got us that then?"

"I would have said a rogue scientist, but they fear for their lives or believe wholly in the cause, so they wouldn't do something as stupid as smuggle out an egg… I think it was the errand boys," frowned Jade. "I guess they think this is useful to us somehow…"

John took the football sized egg from her and inspected it carefully, noting the small crack running along the side.

"My dad once found a broken egg in the garden, and showed me that you could fix the crack with a bit of another egg shell and some normal glue,"

"Did the bird hatch?"

"Yeah, but a cat got it,"

Jade pouted, "Nasty things. I've always been more of a dog person,"

"If you call that beast you hang around with a dog! Anyway, I think we should be able to patch this up. Wanna give it a go?"

"It could be Dave, or it could be some sort of horrible mutant crossbreed, you know that? And if it is Dave, what are we gonna do? Raise him as our own?"

"Sure!" grinned John. "Come on! It'll be fun! We can raise our own little cool kid! What else are you doing now anyway?"

His eyes then glossed over, and she knew he was thinking about that goddamn Con Air film or whatever it was called.

"It'll be just like-" he started, before Jade shoved her hand over his mouth.

"That's enough of that! No one is reminiscing about Nick Cage on my watch," she said. "Okay, we'll try to hatch this. But if it turns out to be some sort of evil bloodthirsty monster, then it's your fault, okay?"

"Okay! Don't you worry Dave, we're gonna raise you just like your bro would have wanted," John went all misty eyed, and Jade was not sure whether it was genuine emotion, sarcasm, or if he was still emotional from thinking of Con Air.

Well, John was officially in charge of getting the egg to hatch.

Maybe it would not be so bad in the village after all.

* * *

><p><strong>== Be Kanaya<strong>

You are now Kanaya Maryam, and you are recieving your first official mission

Cross-stitch was a hobby Kanaya had recently gotten into at the recommendation of Doc Scratch. While she greatly enjoyed it, she was rather suspicious of where they acquired the materials.

Regardless of that, it was still immensely frustrating to be in The Zone finally, and then have some errand boy drag her team off to the aforementioned doctor without a words notice.

The walk was silent; Feferi had recently laid into Eridan, and so the atmosphere in their group as of late had been as awkward as ever. While she was not certain exactly as of what had transpired (for whilst the three of them were friends, Kanaya was not privy to such conversations), she had certainly been informed of the gist of the conversation by Karkat. Platonic feelings of affection had been blossoming between the pair as of late, but that was a story for another time.

As far as she knew, Eridan had finally confessed his flushed attraction to the tyrian blood, and the girl had hotly rejected him. According to Karkat, who felt somewhat responsible for Eridan's moping, Feferi had acted in a rather cruel manner, though admitted that Eridan had egged her on a lot. When she was told this, Kanaya's lips could not help but twitch into a small grin. She of all people could imagine the violet blood getting his pout on at being rejected.

Either way, the pair of seadwellers were no longer talking, and given that they were likely receiving another practice mission things were about to go downhill fast.

"Sit, sit, please," Doc Scratch said warmly as the three entered. "Would any of you like a drink?"

Predictably, Eridan took a black coffee with no sugar, part of his recent attempts to look 'dark and brooding', presumably to make Feferi feel bad for missing out on 'all a this'. It was sweet in a way, but still pathetic.

Upon noticing the atmosphere in the room, the older man chuckled something that sounded like 'ah, to be young' under his breath, and then began informing them of the reason they were summoned, "I am delighted to tell you that we have need of you for a mission today."

At this, Eridan rolled his eyes, "Wwe'we been called out for loads a missions. Wwhat makes this one any more 'delightful'?"

"Because this one is not a practice, as I shall assume you thought," smiled Doc Scratch.

"Shore-y, but have you SEA-N our team? We're not in a fit state to run a bath, let alone run a cohesive mission together. I'd reel-y love to, but the mission would inevitably sink." Feferi piped up.

"Feferi, you make it sound as though we have a choice in the matter," the Jade blood laughed. The three had seemed to embrace the fact that there was no escaping the retainment organisation, and were attempting to make the most of it. While they would gladly leave if there was an opportunity, Feferi's position as heiress, along with their apparent compliance gave them certain luxuries.

"Indeed, Ms Maryam," Doc Scratch said. "I expect the three of you to have worked out these issues, and be ready in a day. We need you to place a bug in one submarine, while destroying another. It sounds fanciful, yet here we are. I also presume that you do not know about the flooding?"

"You would be right," Feferi said, eyes cautiously narrowed.

"We decided we no longer liked how we are being told to run by the governments of the world, and so…"

"Like you were followwin' them before…" Eridan muttered, thinking back to their time in the village, and the horror that had happened there. If _that_ was government approved, then he was moving to Mars.

"… thus, we melted a number the land based glaciers on this planet, releasing a huge tidal wave that swept over much of the existing landmass.

'After we flooded the planet, world leaders have been incredibly wary of sending messages via any method but hand. They figured out how easily we were hacking into their systems, so now are sending each other their plans via submarines, and it has worked so far, but they forget that the sea is Her realm."

"Wwhat, really?" Eridan snorted. "This just sounds like some dumb film plot,"

"You forget that a _lot_ of people have died recently, and everyone is panicking. Brilliant ideas and awful ideas come out in such times, though this could have worked on another enemy. Regardless, they are sending three six-man submarines from India to the US. Two are the second most recent model, and the third which we are bugging is the latest. It's incredibly fast, and both will shoot any piece of technology that comes within twenty kilometres. They are not expecting a pair of mutants who can breathe underwater to ambush the submarine, however, so you are the first method we shall attempt. Feferi, you are planting the bug in one, and Eridan, you are going to be destroying another. The third we will leave intact. They should assume their bugged boat is the only safe vessel if all goes to plan."

"And me?" Kanaya asked.

"You will send out the commands from here. There is no need to send you out to the field, you are too valuable,"

"But couldn't someone else equally do that? I understand how Eridan and Feferi's positions are essential, but surely there are others with better experience for my position,"

The man pondered for a while, then replied, "You make a point. Perhaps someone with more experience would be better for this job. You will watch the mission from beside your replacement while it is taking place for experience instead. Your mentor will provide you with more details as you prepare this evening. You are dismissed."

The three got up to leave the room, and to their surprise there was someone else waiting outside, and a human nonetheless, well according to Eridan's flirting. Kanaya pushed past the royal bloods and saw... saw...

There was a girl sat on the bench, with pale, freckle-splattered skin, and a narrow face framed by platinum-blonde hair. She was of the same blood caste as Eridan as far as Kanaya could tell, and gods but she was attracted to her.

Her sharp features shifted into an amused smirk as she looked upon the three mutants before her.

"You look normal," she said, addressing Kanaya. "Well as normal as a mutant gets. Could you tell me what sort of a mood the creep in there is?"

Being as nervous and flustered as the poor girl was, Kanaya initially stammered out a reply in her native Russian, before correcting herself, "Um, a good one, I would say?"

The girls expression soured immediately. "I was so hoping you would not say that. Thank you anyway."

"Come in Ms Lalonde." Doc Scratch called. Lalonde's face fell further, before she went into his office. Kanaya heard a 'welcome Rose' before the door was shut.

Rose Lalonde was her name.

"Wwhoa, Kan," Eridan sneered.

"What?" the jade blood replied.

"You're lookin' flushed, is all," he snickered, "Glad to see you're finally gettin' over Wris, on account a her bein' mine an' all,"

Kanaya pouted, looking down her nose at the somewhat shorter Eridan. "I got over Vriska quite a while ago, but regardless of that, she belongs to no one. There isn't a being horrid enough on the earth to warrant Vriska's affections anyway,"

"Wwhoa wwhoa wwhoa, don't go waxin' all black on her, that's my job,"

She gave him a cold look, before saying, "Don't trip on all those 'w's, Eridan,"

Perhaps the jade blood now understood why Feferi flipped out so badly at Eridan...

Instead of training with the seadwellers, Kanaya resumed her cross stitching, though albeit in a somewhat more aggressive manner than before. The other two members of her team had gotten so much quicker and stronger, though certainly not more mature.

After a series of warm up exercises, they left to to practice with some new equipment made to boost their speed when underwater. This was something Kanaya could not watch, and so she was returned to the dining hall, where a petulant Karkat sat, joined by Terezi.

Their banter was a comforting noise for some reason, and Kanaya immediately joined the pair. The loss of both Vriska's and Nepeta's teams made the room feel so empty, but the sounds of bickering always filled the room.

"Kanaya!" Terezi sang as she heard the girl approach. While she was still uncertain as to how Terezi managed to 'smell' who she was, she was firmly resolved to never ask, as Nepeta asked a similar question, and it ended with the olive blood getting licked... humorous to watch, but Kanaya did not want to experience it for herself. "How's feferidan going?"

"They are still in the ignoring each other stage," she smiled while sitting. The use of merged couple names was something that had started as an ironic thing, but had soon ended up becoming pretty much sincere.

"Well you'll be fucking dreaming for that when they reach the constant snide remarks stage," Karkat commented.

"What, like you two?" Kanaya commented with a wry smile.

"Well you can go fuck yourself with a piece of rock candy. Here I am giving five star quality fucking advice, and you throw it right back at my face!"

The jade blood chuckled, she had long since got used to the grumpy mutant's ways, and knew he meant her no harm by the rambling.

"Oh please, Karkles, she's completely correct, you can't deny it!" leered Terezi.

"How has your work been going?" Kanaya asked the pair.

"Other than the humans we abducted before the floods, nothing very interesting. Just bodyguard-ing Doc Scratch as he goes to talk to old people usually.

"What? Abducting?"

"We weren't allowed to tell anyone, Terezi you fuckwit," Karkat sighed. "Just so this goes on record, this had fuck all to do with me. If someone gets beat up, it's gonna be Terezi,"

"Aww, my knight in shining armour!" Terezi gasped, mockingly swooning. "But yeah, we had to go with Doc Scratch and abduct a bunch of kids. They didn't even look remotely like mutants! Weird if you ask me,"

At this, Kanaya frowned. "What happened, what did they look like?"

"Umm, it was a while ago, but I'll try to remember... well two of them were blond and really pale, and the other two had black hair and mid-brown skin. Girl and a boy for each of those categories... almost like they were related or something? They looked similar."

"Terezi, you're gonna get into trouble, don't blame me when Gamzee is set on you,"

"Oh shut up , Karkat! Anyway, the blond guy was one of those try hard cool kids, really cute though, um, oh yeah, the two tan kids, Karkat is totally having black feelings for the dude-"

"Terezi, would you cut that out! I don't have any black feelings for him, fucking drop it already you absolute moron,"

"Hang on, what was that about Gamzee?" Kanaya asked, having just registered what Karkat had said a while back.

Terezi paled at this, it seemed that Gamzee was a topic she was not happy to speak on.

"Terezi?" she prompted again. Coming to think of it, she had not seen the stoner for a month or two now.

"They ran out of sopor slime a while back, and since then he's changed to say the fucking least," Karkat's expression was grim. "I guess I'm glad he's no longer drugged up off his mind, but I'd never have thought he'd turn into... whatever, just drop it, Kanaya. I shouldn't have brought it up,"

She pursed her lips. Eridan would probably know what was happening seeing as Karkat and he were 'best bros', but she did not want to be seen as someone who would go behind her friend's backs for gossip.

Though then again…

* * *

><p><strong>== Be Vriska<strong>

You are now Vriska Serket.

"You're way fucking OP, Vrithka," Sollux declared.

"She's what, lasers?" the Handmaid asked, confused at the term.

"He says I'm over-powered, but he's just jealous," Vriska laughed as she inspected the face before her in the small mirror shard on the wall.

"You _are_ OP though. I don't get why you get all the fanthy powerth. You're not even a low blood, you don't detherve to have thothe powerth,"

"Sollux, you know as well as I do why this is happening!" Vriska sneered. "Being able to control peoples mind's is a lot different than being able to set shit on fire and you know it,"

She walked away from the mirror and struck a pose before the three trolls behind her, flicking her hair over her shoulder.

"Being able to change peoples perception of the world around them is more powerful than anything you could do,"

Sollux merely glared at her from behind his glasses, then returned to messing about on his phone.

"Anyway, how do I look?"

For Tavros and Sollux (though earlier it had not worked), where Vriska's voice was coming from, was a pale young woman absolutely smattered in freckles. No horns or yellow sclera in sight. Definitely not Vriska. But then the facial structure was the same, as was the body type… all that had really changed was her colours pallette.

Her ginger hair seemed unnaturally red, though the bunch of them had not seen a hair colour other than black in so long they had almost forgotten what other hair colours looked like.

"Not bad, but, uhh, you're gonna, well… stick out a bit,"

Vriska frowned, "But they'll have images on their files of what I used to look like."

"Oh yeah,"

"If you're gonna go for the ginger look, then you need more thunburn," Sollux sighed. "I can tell you're from the UK,"

"Like you went outside often enough to know what sunburn was,"

"We actually have thun in the thtateth though. I know it mutht be very confuthing for you poor Britth to actually experienthe it,

"Go fuck yourself, Sollux,"

Closing her eyes, Vriska focused for a few seconds. After a no more than a minute of this, blotches of red, painful looking sunburn appeared liberally on her shoulders and face.

"Better?"

Sollux nodded, "Yep,"

"I wonder how it looks in the, um, sunlight," Tavros said, before the three of them gave each other a look and rushed for the door.

"Hey!" The three stopped in their tracks and turned to the Handmaid. "You can't all three go, one of you needs to stay with me."

The three of them shuffled awkwardly on their feet before deciding that Tavros and Vriska would go up first, then he would be swapped for Sollux.

They sprinted for the exit, excited at the chance to test out her new powers and get out of the dingy tunnels.

Before leaving, Vriska made sure no one was nearby, then hopped out onto the hard soil, relishing the sound it made. It was different to the sound of the damn tunnels, and in her eyes that made it wonderful.

"Well, it looks pretty good," Tavros shrugged, "But, uhh, not as nice as… um…"

"Not as nice as what, Toreadork?" the blue-blood grinned, seeing where his comment was going.

"Nothing… um. Hey, so, where did your horns go?"

Her face fell a fraction, but the smile did not go. Instead, she grabbed his hand and placed it on a patch of air over her head.

At Tavros' suddenly baffled expression, Vriska laughed heartily.

"It's, it's like I can feel, there's something, there? But, I uh, my brain is telling me, there isn't?" he stammered.

"That's interesting," Vriska said, "I wasn't sure what would actually happen if they were touched."

"It's pretty amazing. I wish I could, could do something like that." Tavros muttered with a starstruck expression. "Hey, um, do you think, do you think you'd be, uhh, able to do the same thing, but, ah, for me and Sollux and HM?"

"Pfft, who are you speaking to? Of course I could! I'm Vriska, remeeeeeeeember?" She gave him a lopsided smile. "But, it will come at a cost,"

"Huh? Why… it's, not like you can spend the money or anything…"

"Not that kind of cost you moron," Vriska said, rolling her eyes. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. I probably could, but not right now,"

"No, what cost did you mean?" he asked, oddly attentive.

Her mouth curved into a sharp smile, and she leaned close to him.

"How about a kiss?"

In the space of a second, Tavros' face was lit with a deep flush. No matter how confident and strong he had gotten while she was gone, Vriska could still reduce him to a flushed wreck with a few words.

"Umm, why would, would you want that?"

"I wonder?"

"Vriska… I, I mean, I still haven't really, uhh, forgotten that you killed Aradia. I watched you kill her. That… that's not something you, you forget easily. I'm sorry, I cant," he sighed.

Eyebrows drawing together into a frown, Vriska turned away, staring out at the glittering expanse of ocean. She dropped the disguise and noticed the sudden grey splodge appear on the truck's paint job beside her in her peripheral vision.

Silence settled heavily, something that Vriska was not used to around Tavros. With him, the gaps between conversation were comfortable, yet the current silence felt awkward.

And yet neither could think of anything to say.

A beetle happened to wander within their vision, and both gratefully fixed their vision on the creature. It appeared to scurry about aimlessly, before hurrying under the truck.

"Sometimes I forget, what I used to look like," Tavros commented.

"Really?"

"Yeah, well uh, we've been like this for what, uhh, maybe five years now? And, it's not like we have photos, or anything. I remember what I, uhh, looked like when I was a baby, or a toddler, but here… I don't know, it's stupid, sorry,"

Vriska pondered, then said, "No, I know what you mean. This place gets to you."

"You… this look suits you better, than um, being a human,"

"I suit having grey skin and horns, instead of looking like a normal human?" she gasped, pretending to be insulted.

"No, you looked nice, um, when you were a human too,"

"So I don't look pretty _now_, is that what you're saying?"

"No! I mean, you look pretty whatever you look like...!" Tavros suddenly realised what he had said, and clasped a hand over his mouth. "F-forget I said that, um, yeah,"

"No, I don't think I will," smiled Vriska.

They sat in silence again, though this time it was comfortable.

Vriska looked over at Tavros, and thought back to the first time she had seen him. He had been a quivering little boy walking off the bus, with barely any grey on him.

Placing a hand on his, she focused intensely, placing her space hand on her temple. After half a minute, his arm turned a somewhat ashy shade of brown.

They laughed, and Vriska broke the 'spell'.

"Looks like, you need more, uh, practice," he said.

"Pfft, as if! I was just giving you a taster, like I said, if you want the full deal then you have to pay the price," Vriska winked, knowing full well that Tavros had said he felt uncomfortable with the idea. Oh well, it would simply give her longer to practice. No one refused Vriska!

Though… Tavros _had_ just done it then…

They admired the new control she had over her body, before Tavros left, and Sollux came up to nitpick on the details. It was not adoration, but it was still helpful, and Vriska appreciated it greatly though did not express it.

Outside of viewing herself in a mirror, Vriska was unable to observe the changes on her body, which was something she was apprehensive about. Looking down at her arm, she saw only grey, though she knew that to anyone else it would appear cream coloured and freckled.

The pair stayed out until the sun began to set, bickering and teasing one another. Collecting more of the cacti had been a request from the Handmaid, and so they quickly did that before the cold set in.

Lights from the village glittered in the distance while they worked. They had found the cactus flesh to be tasty enough, though none were certain as to whether they genuinely liked it, or if it was simply because they had not eaten fresh food in so long.

They ate it grilled on a slab of rock heated over a fire, though this was obviously something that had to be done outside. Two of them would keep an eye on the fire, and then the handmaid and another member of Team Eight would sit in the tunnel system to keep her company and bring food.

That night, Vriska and Tavros sat under the stars, watching the flames crackle, whilst the juices from the cacti hissed and sizzled at the heat. Sollux had managed to hit a small mammalian creature with his optic blasts, and so that joined the cactus. None knew what animal it was though. Perhaps a mutated fox.

Vriska had shown to be surprisingly good at preparing the meat. In a matter of minutes, the skin had been removed. She shrugged it off as being something she had learnt from her Fatal Online Role Play, though the others doubted this due to the lack of showing off. There was nothing to be done though, Vriska was refusing to talk, and she was the only one with mind powers.

Flipping over the flesh and fruit from the cacti was challenging, and involved using a pair of twigs as chopsticks. The meat was a lot easier, however, seeing as it could just be stabbed. While Vriska was doing this, she noticed Tavros staring up at the sky with a small frown on his face.

She said nothing however, and let the soft sound of the waves breaking on the shore fill the air. Once done with turning the food, she asked, "What's up?"

To her surprise, he did not jump a little as he usually did when she addressed him suddenly.

"There aren't any planes," he said.

"So what?" she shrugged, her mouth full of some previously cooked cactus fruit.

"We haven't, uhh, seen a single plane or even a trail since, well, before we escaped,"

"Yeah? Maybe they just don't fly over here. We _are_ in the middle of no where, idiot,"

Tavros frowned. "No, there were planes passing overhead even when we were, uh, when we were in the Retainment Organisation. I don't see why there would, be ones there, and not here,"

"The Handmaid said that the Condesce flooded the world didn't she? I guess it fucked up everything really badly," It was the answer neither of them wanted to say, but hell _someone_ had to say it.

Taking another moment to look up at planes that no longer flew overhead, Tavros then began to collect some of the now cooked food, and set it aside for when Sollux returned for more.

"Vriska?"

She placed the bone from the leg she had finished eating in a large jar with the rest of the bones (they had planned to make a broth). "Yeah?"

"Theres, uhh, something I've been wanting to ask for a while…"

Huh! "I don't get periods anymore if you were wondering how we didn't leave a bloody trail behind us," she smirked, purposefully trying to make him uncomfortable, though the fact was true. The Handmaid was informed her that the mutation had changed her whole body over time, and that now she was less human, the periods would go. Not that Vriska was at all complaining…

"Oh! No, um, that's not at all, uhh, what I was going to ask. I just, wanted to ask about… about why you killed Aradia,"

Vriska stiffened immediately.

"What?"

"Why did you do it?"

"As if you'd listen to me if I said!"

Pushing her fringe from her eyes, Vriska sat up a little straighter. "I guess Sollux told you, huh?"

Tavros nodded, then said, "I wanted to hear it with my own ears,"

He seemed different, confident; more like the man she saw at the President's ball than the boy he was usually was.

"Well… it's complicated. I could lie and claim that the Condesce made me do it, but at the end of the day… it was my choice," At the hardening of Tavros' expression, she then added, "I didn't kill her for fun, though the fight was a fucking blast. I was told that if I killed her, then I'd get us our assorted missing limbs back…"

Of course Tavros would then start staring at her robotic arm after that realisation. It was fabulous as fuck looking, but still, he did not need to be so obvious about it. The arm was so beautifully made that Vriska forgot she had it most of the time.

"So you killed a person, just for my legs and your arm?"

"_Just_ your legs and my arm? Who was it who sobbed into me and _begged_ for me to get them their legs back again? Huh? _Because I'm preeeeeeeetty fucking sure it wasn't Sollux_!" Vriska hissed back.

"No, I'm sorry but, I can't understand. You can't trade a life for, uhh, some limbs. That's… I don't get it, Vriska,"

"The Handmaid, she said it would be okay for all parties in the end. I asked her how it would be okay for Aradia, and she just smiled and told me to 'mind my potatoes', but she didn't seem at all upset at the death of her granddaughter or whatever Aradia is to her. She's a time traveller, it sounds crazy but it's obvious. There's so much crazy in our live already though, so it's not that surprising really…"

Tavros then thought for a while, and they sat in silence until the fire was nothing more than embers.

"Tell me, about your family, Vriska," he asked, his voice dangerously low.

"Why should I?"

"Vriska, I'm trying to fucking understand you here, uhh, so could you not be obnoxious for once in your life?"

The cerulean blood scowled, then said, "Fine. But I'm only telling you because I want to. I don't really know where to start?"

"Wherever is comfortable for you,"

"Well my mum had me when she was young, and my dad left so she and my grandma raised me. My grandma was then killed when I was just a toddler, by who I now know to be your grandfather, so fuck him I guess? The Condesce told me that they used to be lovers, so yeah the more you know, though kinda too much info from her there, but it makes sense…

'Anyway, because our grandparents were involved with one another, my family had to live among green and teal bloods, and not in the nice parts either. Inter-caste relationships are really frowned upon, or they were more so back then anyway. And because of this shunning, my family couldn't get more… traditional jobs," This was it. "We sold blood on the black market, and body parts if the person died. We siphoned,"

Tavros said nothing, and kept his expression blank. He was clearly expecting her to continue the story.

"Uh, so I would go out and lure people to my mum when I was as young as five since my grandma couldn't do it anymore, and together my mum and I would tie down the victim and siphon off as much blood as possible. If they struggled too much then they would sometimes bleed to death, which is where the body parts would come in. Blood medicine especially popular amongst people of Gamzee's blood caste, which is why we never got arrested."

At this, Tavros nodded. It made sense. While low-bloods tended not to take part in the illegal siphoning trade due to the high costs of the blood (not to mention they were often targeted), it was something many had heard of, especially in the more run down districts.

Bronze and olive blood were used as aphrodisiacs, though allegedly violet blood was the most potent, yet that was incredibly rare. Indigo blood was also popular due to its alleged strength boosting powers, and the skills they apparently gave you got stranger as you got through the rest of the caste.

There were hushed whispers that the blood of a fuchsia empress could heal any ailment and even bring the dead back to the world of the living. None had managed to siphon a fuchsia of their blood however, so they would remain speculation.

All bullshit of course, but the placebo effect was a powerful thing.

"We've always been protected by the Zahhak family. I think my mum and Equius' dad were BFFs or something, but regardless of that, it gave us an extra level of security. When my sister was a toddler though, my mum decided that she needed to get a normal job, and so she managed to. But it wasn't enough money, so I continued to lure creeps in, and then siphon them. I wasn't very good at first though, I got it wrong several times and most of my victims died. I've got a lot of deaths on my hands. That's where all the ghosts came from that Aradia sent after me, if you remember all that bullshit,"

"You, uhh, were siphoning people when you just five?" he said softly.

"You don't need to sound so fucking upset. I'm fine! I lived through it. We survived. You've got to do shitty things sometimes,"

"Did you want to do it?"

Vriska looked at him oddly then laughed, "You think I had a choice? For the first ten years of my life it was the only way we could make money! If I wasn't capturing people then it would be me on the siphoning table! And it was several times! There will be countless pricks out there with my 'lucky' blood sitting in their stomachs as they try to hook up or do well on their tests or what-fucking-ever,"

It took her a few moments to notice that the warmth on her clenched hand wasn't just the heat from the fire.

"Don't look at me like that," she snarled, moving her hand away from his. "I don't want your pity. If the only reason you care about me now is because of this then I don't want any of it,"

"I think I understand you a bit better now," he said, and glanced at her arm, expecting to see puncture marks.

"The scars went when I went grey. Sorry to disappoint you," she frowned.

"I'm not disappointed,"

"So what tragic dark secrets do I get from you now?" she said mockingly, yet he looked at her with such kindness and understanding that she found all the bitterness melt away, and all that was left was a deep rooted sadness.

A tear snaked its way down her eyelid, down the cheek and corner of the mouth, then reached the chin and dropped to splat against the dry earth. Another soon joined it and before she knew it, Tavros had pulled her into his warm embrace.

"Y-you low-bloods are so fucking warm, what's with that?" she said between sobs.

"I don't know," he replied softly.

"I don't even know why I'm crying, what the fuck?"

Tavros pressed his cheek into her hair, an awkward affair when both parties had horns. "Don't worry about it, it's okay, I've got you,"

"Why are you being nice to me?" she demanded. "I'm a fucking bitch to you. I paralyzed you for fucks sake! I torment you every day!"

"You got me the ability to walk back twice. You visited me every day at the, uhh, hospital, and made sure they looked after me. You're definitely a bitch, um, no doubt about that. But you're a bitch that cares for me, even if you're, you're too tsundere to show it,"

She wiped her eyes with the back of a hand, "Tsundere? You fucking weeaboo, Nitram!"

"What can I say?"

"That still doesn't explain why you're being nice to me. I killed your friend, that kind of shit doesn't just go!"

He thought about it, then replied, "No. It doesn't. But I think you know what you did was wrong. You've suffered enough,"

"No I haven't! You're too fucking soft!"

"Yeah, I am. One of us needs to be; you're too proud to show any,"

Vriska opened her mouth to protest again, but was stopped when the orange blood leant in and kissed her quickly on the mouth.

His eyes went wide, "Oh, god, uhh, actually that, um, probably wasn't the, best idea,"

Vriska eyes crinkled with amusement. "You just kissed me!"

"I, uhh, yeah I guess, I umm…" he stammered, then closed his eyes as Vriska leant in for another kiss. This time, he did not leap away with embarrassment, and instead wrapped the arms he held around her midriff tighter.

Unlike Vriska, Tavros had not had a whole lot of experience with kissing, and hoped that he was not embarrassing her too much. Though from the little noises she made, he assumed she was enjoying it.

His lips were a lot softer that hers, mostly because she bit hers too much, and without her trademark blue lipstick there was nothing to stop them getting cracked and dry. Though seeing as her face was still damp from the tears, dry lips was hardly an issue.

It was strange how quickly they got used to it, but after only a few seconds they both felt stupidly comfortable and content. Tavros had received only one bad kiss, and so made sure not to replicate anything from that train wreck.

"Normal smooches are a lot different to hate smooches," she commented in a somewhat dazed manner, then realised that it was probably not the time or place to be talking about kissing other guys.

They leant on one another and looked out at the ocean that had flooded the landscape. It was a lot more bearable out in the cold with Tavros to lean on, and though Vriska was not sure on what had just happened, she was at least thankful for that.

* * *

><p>Fingers tugged nervously at the hemline of the boilersuit sleeves, before Vriska unzipped the top half of it, and tied it round her waist. It would take more effort to project the illusion onto her whole arms as opposed to just her hands, but then getting overheated would not do either.<p>

"You thure you don't want me any clother?" Sollux asked as Vriska prepared to head into the town the next day.

"Yes, mum, I'm sure," she snorted. "I'll be fine. Now get hidden, I'd rather not have to find somewhere to dump your dead body,"

"Charming,"

Vriska winked at the gold blood then turned and began her walk to the village in the distance. As far as she could tell it was still early, no more than nine in the morning going by the suns position. Their sleeping patterns were out of sync, resulting in going to bed at seven in the evening, and waking at five in the morning or earlier. Sollux reflected, however, that it was probably better than his previous habit of sleeping from seven in the _morning_ until five in the _evening_. Even Vriska had to admit that was a fucked up sleeping pattern for a school kid.

Even though the village was still a great distance away, nerves began to twist Vriska up in knots.

'Pull yourself together! You're Vriska Serket, not a snivelly crybaby,' she told herself mentally.

It was time to head into the village.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** I often worry at how I've made Vriska waaay too soft, especially in regards to her murder of Aradia and the reasoning behind it. But then I remind myself that she is a human in this as opposed to a true troll like the Condesce, and so she won't be quite as bloodthirsty as she is in canon. Still though, I hope this milder characteristic isn't too much of a problem for you guys :S

Also, sorry again for yet another slow update! Forgot to say I was going on holiday . I did manage to do some writing while there, but a bunch of drama happened AGAIN so I didn't feel like doing much at all. I swear my life isn't usually as full of bs as it has been this year haha O_O at least this one is super long I guess

Anyway, thanks for reading, as always 3


	27. Juggalos and camping supplies

**== Be Gamzee**

Error: you cannot be Gamzee.

**==Be someone talking to Gamzee instead!**

You are now Karkat Vantas.

He knew he must keep very still while he waited.

Though he was by no means flighty or easily scared, Karkat was struggling to suppress his fight, flight or freeze instincts as he held the gaze of the creature before him - the creature once known as Gamzee Makara.

It was a common stereotype that purple bloods were bulky and thuggish, even without all the urban legends about them snapping and going on murderous rampages being taken into account. The purple blood in question had always seemed very peaceful compared to the other members of his caste, but then he had been on the sopor slime near constantly back in those days. Approximately two months prior, the Retainment Organisation had run out of the sopor slime (though Karkat had his suspicions about that), and though the effects were not immediately obvious, over the period of three weeks, Gamzee's personality underwent a complete turn around from strange but harmless to fucking terrifying.

Puberty had turned the boy into a frighteningly tall and emancipated mutant, with disproportionately large hands and feet, each finger and toe capped with a long, talon like nail. His eyes, once soft, were now intense and focussed, and the eerie grin on his face never once reached them... though perhaps that was for the best. Karkat knew not what would bring this version of Gamzee joy, but whatever it was, he doubted it was anything good.

How he missed the simpler days before all this mutant nonsense.

The Condesce had brought Karkat in to attempt to pacify the purple blood between her missions for him, but it was a feat easier said than done. Not that he could refuse, of course.

After what felt like an age, Gamzee cocked his head at the much smaller mutant, for Karkat had asked him how 'his dumb ass was doing'.

"Oh look. _It's my good brother Karkat all motherfucking up and at 'em in here_. Did the fish bitch send you? _Because wicked and mirthful though I be, I fucking doubt you came here of your own motherfucking accord, not to my domain,_" the monster rumbled, his voice alternating between quiet and soft, to livid tones dripping with energy and force, as IR had when he was possessed by the tyrian fog. Well, at least he had not dropped his ridiculously over the top usage of his favourite profanity; that would be a whole new dimension of crazy on top of the insanity that already existed.

This thing was just like a dangerous wild animal. One had to remain calm and show no trace of fear, or basically he had to act in the opposite manner to how he would have with the Gamzee of old.

Karkat ran his tongue over his lips, then said gently, "Gamzee, I came here because I wanted to, why can't you get it through your bulgemunchingly thick skull?"

After another lengthy pause as Gamzee processed the question.

"Honk. _Honk_," he said as his grin widened. Great.

"Uhh, so have you been sent on anymore missions?"

At this the skin surrounding Gamzee's eyes crinkled slightly, and it was as terrifying a sight as Karkat had imagined.

"Sure have. _Today I got my motherfucking massacre on_,"

At this, Karkat involuntarily flinched back, prompting the purple blood to lope forwards towards him, though he stopped in his tracks once Karkat stopped and regained his confident look.

"What?"

"What? _I said I went all about and killed a bunch of motherfuckers trying to stop this mirthful endeavour we're being motherfucking taken on_. I crushed them all with my bare hands and clubs. _And painted a wicked motherfucking rainbow with their blood_. Fucking dirt bloods getting such miraculous colours up out of their veins is a sin but I can't change that. _Honk_,"

"What? Why are you smiling? What the fuck is wrong with you!" Karkat growled, accidentally stepping back until Gamzee began to advance once more. Fuck.

"It's who I am, brother. _It's the down roots of my motherfucking calling and being_. Culling people is in my blood,"

"Says who?"

_"The motherfucking fish bitch woke me up_. Awakened something deep inside me,"

Shuffling back once more, Karkat realised with horror that his back was up against the wall. Thankfully, the door was only five or so metres away (hugely lucky considering the immense size of the room), but that was still five metres too far. One of Gamzee's watermelon sized fists softly rested itself on the wall next to his head. A quiet but very powerful threat. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

**== Fight back!**

Karkat cannot move

**== With words!**

Letting his fear get the better of him, Karkat spat, "Snap out of it, you fuckwit!"

Gamzee's second fist slammed down, the impact making Karkat's head lurch forward then smack back onto the hard wall. "That fucking hurt!"

"_I know_,"

"Fuck, Gamzee, please just stop this! Don't you feel at all bad for killing all those people?" he pleaded before he felt the clowns hand begin to snake around his throat. Tears began to prickle at the corners of his eyes. Not again damn it! This kept on happening! Every fucking time he came down, and he was getting fed up. No progress was being made with Gamzee, and he seriously doubted that any progress would ever be made.

"Don't you get it? _They were the motherfucking dredges of this society, up and tying us down, stopping all of us from the righteous miracles you motherfucking deserve_. Even you, you rust blo-" and then Gamzee stopped completely still, the slowly tightening grip on Karkats neck pausing.

His finger ran almost affectionately up Karkat's soft cheek, wiping up the tear that had snuck down, and then inspected it carefully, though how the clown could see any amount of detail in the water drop with the abysmal lighting conditions in Gamzee's room was beyond Karkat.

"You... _You dirty motherfucking mutant_!" Gamzee cried, his usual rumbling voice being replaced with a shriek that was loud even on his more intense verbal alternations.

"We're all mutants here! _You're_ a mutant, you nookfondling asswipe!" Karkat hissed as the grip on his throat suddenly tightened again. "Or... did you f-forg... et tha... t..."

Gamzee stepped away a little from Karkat, still pinning the mutant blood against the wall, but so that he had space to move. Then with only a small sneer of disgust, he drove his fist into Karkats stomach, winding the poor boy intensely, and only quickening asphyxiation.

Rapid footsteps from the corridor alerted Gamzee to the guards approaching, which served only to increase the battering he was giving.

Pshoooooooo!

A dart flew through the air and embedded itself deep into Gamzee's neck. Within seconds, the massive troll toppled to the ground, releasing Karkat. Like his attacker, Karkat fell quickly to the ground, wheezing and coughing as he tried to get air back in his lungs, despite the pain felt from breathing. The guards hoisted him up into a wheelchair and a pair sped him off to a doctor while the others made sure Gamzee was securely locked up in his room. Not only could he no longer fit in the capsule beds, but for the safety of the other mutants it was best for everyone if he slept alone.

Treatment for Karkat was quick and methodical. Choking was very much a simple injury these days, if one compared it to the other cases the doctors received. Though Karkat had certainly received worse in his time as one of Doc Scratch's bodyguards, the betrayal from being so badly injured by Gamzee added emotional pain to his badly bruised ribs and sore throat.

Gamzee's first episode had been when he and Terezi had stayed behind to train. They had already run out of sopor over a month prior, and on the day it ran out, they removed all mutant contact with him aside from his team members. It was decided that they would be safest, yet that did nothing to help the teal blood.

As per usual, she was taunting him with one of her comments about justice this and punishment that, when he snapped. All the bullshit the Condesce fed him had finally soaked in evidently, and he decided that he no longer needed to put up with '_a lowly motherfucking teal_', barred the door and stomped on her chest and body until she coughed up blood, which he then used to paint 'hOnk :o)' all about on the floor. When the guards finally got in, Terezi had three broken ribs and fractures on both arms, as well as countless nasty bruises and grazes. Thanks to stem cells, nanobots and her status as a mutant, she recovered quickly, but remained angry and scared of her team mate.

Since then, he had been banned from their training sessions, and was taught exclusively by the Condesce, for she alone could handle him. She then had the wonderful idea of sending Karkat in to do her job, which evidently was going swimmingly.

Having no stem cells to fall back on, Karkat could only opt for more traditional treatments. He found it darkly funny how his injuries were no where near as bad as Terezi's had been, yet it would take him longer to heal. Great.

After being escourted back to the hall, he found the room near empty. In the corner, presumably moping to himself was Eridan. At Karkat's entrance, however, he perked up a little.

"Hey, Kar. I sawed you some food," he greeted, though the monotonous sense to his words did not leave.

"Thanks, I'm not that hungry though..." he said with a hiss of pain as he lowered himself down into the chair.

Eridan shot him a concerned look. "You okay? Your muscles hurtin' or something?"

Oh yeah, he had told them a that he had been having solo training with one of the other tutors.

"Uh, kinda yeah," he replied, then ripped off a piece of bread to dip in his soup. Damn the food was good. Chicken broth, with pasta, vegetables and small pieces of chicken in was on the menu that day, and though slightly cold was still delicious. Karkat took back what he had said, he was starving.

He then noticed he was being watched, and turned to see Eridan staring at his cheeks. Fuck, he thought, and scrubbed at his face with his sleeve in case any tear marks remained. "You're being unnaturally quiet. The fuck do you want?"

"You hawe a bruise formin' on your cheek, Kar,"

Oh.

"Must have got it when I fell over," he shrugged, but the look he received from the violet blood said very clearly that he was not buying the story.

"Did you try to talk to Gamzee again?" he asked in haughty tone. "I fuckin' wwarned you no good wwould come a it,"

"I haven't got a fucking choice you fuckwrangling idiot! Jeez," he said, and aggressively continued eating. "Why you so fucking concerned anyway? I'll live,"

"'cause you're my bro, Kar. I care about you an' all that crap,"

"Fuck, don't you dare start hitting on me too, got it fish brain?" he snorted, yet Eridan did not appreciate the joke and shot him an annoyed look.

"Okay, first a all, I did not appreciate that in the least. An' second, I do not hit on eweryone,"

"Eridan," Karkat said with a heavy sigh. "As your friend, god knows why I am, I can confirm to you that you do indeed fucking hit on everything that moves,"

"Hmpf," Eridan got up to leave, but a hand on his arm stopped him.

"Hey man come on, calm down,"

"You wwere the one wwho said, an' I quote, there are plenty more fish in the sea," he said once sat down again.

Karkat pouted, "Well, yeah, but I didn't expect you to hit on half the people left, you fishguzzler,"

At this, Eridan laughed good naturedly, "I can't help that eweryone here is fuckin' hot an' all,"

"I thought you didn't like 'land dwwellers', or is this just some crazy rebound shit?"

Okay, that one may have been too far, but it was true, and caused Eridan to sigh, "Kar you're testin' my patience there,"

"Hey, you're not the one who has to spend fucking hours trying to calm your sorry ass down after you get rejected by yet another person."

"Okay, fair enough," he shrugged, then flopped onto the desk, hiding his face dramatically in his ever present scarf. "Seriously though, wwhere am I trippin' up here, wwhy does eweryone find me repulsiwe,"

"Uh, let's see, probably because you pull shit like that?"

The royal blood looked up at Karkat in his typical over-the-top manner and ignored his advice, "It's the glasses, isn't it? I should a knowwn,"

"Oh my fucking god..." Karkat muttered. How Eridan managed to ignore his advice on why he was considered unattractive every single time was insane. Looks wise, the violet blood was undeniably stunning: his face was long, thin and elegant, albeit a little alien-like due to the mutations (aka shark-like teeth, grey skin and overly angular features). But looks were not the problem; he was loosing marks on his personality. As Karkat had told Eridan dozens of times, a good face meant nothing if the person behind it was rotten, unless you were looking for a cheap one night fling, and though the violet blood may try desperately to give the impression that he did not care for commitment anymore, it was painfully obvious that he was into long fairy tale romances.

But whatever, getting Eridan into a relationship was not what Karkat was there for.

"I'm gonna say this once last time, you thick skulled hornlicker. Your flouncy demanding attitude is what's keeping you single. That and the fact that we're in a fucking carehome for mutants, so it's not like anyone in their right minds would even be getting into that shit,"

"Sol did," Eridan mumbled darkly.

Not this shit again.

"Yeah well Sollux is a cocky dimwit, the less said about him the better,"

"Heh," Eridan smiled. "Thanks, Kar. You alwways knoww howw to make me feel better,"

"The most bullshit talent in the world if you ask me," the mutant blood grumbled. "Out of the people left here if we exclude Gamzee, the only ones you've not flirted with are Kanaya and I,"

"Wwell you an' Kan are my friends, I don't wwanna mess that up like I did with Fef, ewen if I did feel that wway. Besides, Kanaya's like my mum,"

Wow, Karkat was surprised. "I'm sorry, did I just hear you admit that you learnt something?"

"Shut up, landdwweller," Eridan snapped with a light blush of embarassment. "Anywway, wwe should go back to the dorm noww seein' as you're done eatin'. It's gettin' late,"

As Eridan walked towards the door, Karkat noticed a limp to his gait.

"Hey, are you alright?" the mutant called, quickly catching up. It was common for low bloods to walk about with injuries treated in the traditional fashion, but for a violet blood to have a limp when stem cells were readily available was odd to say the least.

"I'm fine,"

"No, man, you're not, what happened?" An errand boy appeared to show them to the dorm, as Karkat kept a steadying hand on his friends upper arm.

"I fucked up at my mission an' got injured, an' got told I had to heal naturally on account a that fuck up,"

"Weren't you just blowing up a sub or something?"

"Confidential, Kar," he smirked.

With an eyeroll, the conversation finished.

Once safely inside his overly snug bedroom (aka high end capsule), he chatted with Kanaya a little. Eridan's comment on her being like a mother came to mind, making him grin, and making her gasp with a mixture of shock and annoyance.

GA: I am Only Eighteen I Would Hardly Make A Good Mother To A Pair Of Stunted Young Men

CG: STUNTED?

GA: You Being Physically Stunted And Eridan Being Emotionally Stunted I Am Sure We Can Both Agree On That

CG: ):B

But he cut off the conversation before it grew too long; he was to be sent on another bodyguard mission the next day, not to mention his whole body ached from the bruises Gamzee had given him. Hopefully rest would help some of the injuries heal a little. Hopefully.

* * *

><p><strong>== Is Vriska in the village yet? Be Vriska!<strong>

You are now Vriska Serket, and you are walking towards a distant village.

As Vriska approached the village she noticed how much larger it appeared. In fact, it would be more accurate to call it a town.

The walk along the train tracks was a lengthy and boring affair, especially in the heat of the sun, thus, after half an hour, Vriska took a short break and drank a little of the water from one of two bottles in her pack. It was deliciously cool.

After another ten minutes, the noise of people could be heard, thanks to her advanced hearing, and it made her stop in her tracks completely. Aside from the lone mission to the costume party, Vriska had not been around ordinary people openly in years, and it made her feel… odd. While she had never been one for being surrounded by constant company, having only the same few mutants around for the past four or so years had not been fun. Nor had been the necessity of hiding when encountering normal people on her missions into the outside world.

To calm herself, Vriska took the mirror shard from her pocket and gazed at her disguise. It was all in order.

Perhaps one day she could go among normal people while looking all mutated… but that day was not going to be anytime soon, not with what the Condesce had done.

Sure enough, the train tracks passed through a somewhat worn down station. The Brit hoisted herself up onto the platform, then peered about, surprised to see nobody about. Though perhaps trains only ran from the direction where the sea had covered the tracks. That would explain it, she decided.

A few birds scattered as she entered the main body of the station, but most chose to watch her wander about from above. They were birds she had never seen before, but given how she had never left the United Kingdom before the whole mutant fiasco it hardly surprised her. Judging by the cooing, however, she decided they were most likely some sort of pigeon or dove.

Outside, she could hear a few voices. Peering round the corner, Vriska could see a small, abandoned station shop, and in the distance a hotel and a bunch of houses. Well, assuming that the train really _was_ out of commission, Vriska decided to follow the tracks a while further into the town; old habits die hard, and when the habit of avoiding human sight so one was not maimed was the one in question, it made sense for her to be somewhat cautious.

At the second station, she was pleased to notice that several non-residential buildings surrounded the tracks, and increased in density the closer she got.

"Here's my stop," she muttered to herself as she clambered up onto the platform once more. Inside were a number of refugees clustered beneath bridges and in doorways, mostly likely displaced by the flooding or fighting.

Like the previous station, none of the shops were open, with all doors and windows shuttered and locked down. Vriska walked through the refugees, then out of the station, feeling an odd sense of pride at how no one screamed at the sight of her.

Being proud of such a thing was pretty darn weird actually... but regardless, she carried on, but not before using one of the newfound muscles in her ear to dim the noise entering her ear canals. Having hypersensitive ears was all well and good until you found yourself surrounded by all the noise of a human settlement.

Outside was a heavily populated road leading up to a town square. Shops lined the street, with many having both a marquee outside, along with the main body of goods inside the building. And the variety! Most were selling food and clean water, but a number were selling obviously stolen household goods such as chairs and frying pans. Blankets were also popular stall items, some looking oddly familiar.

Yet before she got stuck in shopping, Vriska decided to have a look around, feeling cocky and self-assured enough to believe no one would see through her disguise. In the centre of the square were a number more marquees baking in the heat, with the odd person sleeping in doorways.

The first thing that caught her eye was a newsstand, though how anything was still in print was beyond her. Fuck, if only she had money... though at least she could see the headline, which read in no uncertain terms 'WAR WITH CONDESCE 'A LOSING BATTLE'"

Hoping the saleswoman would not notice, Vriska shuffled a little closer.

Having just learnt that it has been the President's Secretary of State who had said the quote in mention, Vriska was then made aware of the saleswoman glaring at her.

"You done, kid?" she asked. "You gotta pay to read it. Five dollars,"

"Five dollars?" Vriska replied incredulously. "I don't even know how much that is in pounds, but it sounds like way too fucking much!"

"You're British? You got stuck here on holiday or something?"

"Maybe," frowned Vriska. "What's it to you?"

"Whatever. If you've not got the money then move along."

Well she hated being ordered about, but there was little she could do, thus Vriska backed down and kept walking; she could not use mind control in front of so many people, unfortunately, and so had to act like any normal person would when faced with a tetchy newsstand seller.

Most other stalls in the market were selling more of the same basic necessities: food, blankets, cooking equipment (including knives), tents and portable solar panels, along with warm clothing and other goods.

While eyeing up a thick woollen sweater, Vriska noticed a police officer staring her down. Confused, she gave him a sweet smile before ambling on to another stall. Being arrested was certainly not on her to do list for today.

Anyway, if she wanted to buy anything she would have to go inside the shops, Vriska realised, as otherwise she would be seen using her powers by all the people milling about... and then there was the issue of the people inside the store too! Ugh. For a second she considered talking someone into giving her money, but judging by the state of the people wandering around the streets, they were as broke as the Brit.

These people were so pathetic looking to her that she even Vriska couldn't find it in her to pick on them. She was a bitch, but she had certain standards, near nonexistent though they be.

Vriska cut down a side road, darting through a narrow alley before coming out at the backside of the main street. Most had either a securely locked door, a guard or both positioned at their rear entrances presumably due to break ins. Indeed there were a few refugees rooting through the large bins, but the guards did not stop them. If anything it seemed they felt pity towards the refugees, though if they did they certainly did not show it.

One of the employees, upon noticing her, said in a low voice, "Don't you think about doing anything, you hear?"

"Got it, sir," she replied mockingly, and carried on, hoping to find a quieter spot.

Bingo.

Around the corner was the back of an outdoors shop, and whilst it was certainly not Vriska's first choice of shop, it would do. The employee guarding the backdoor eyed her lazily, with skin a pale cream, and ginger hair just like Vriska's current disguise.

"Don't try anything," he warned, then went back to reading his book.

Vriska put on her best approximation of an innocent smile, then said, "I wasn't going to, only, I wanted to ask something if that's alright?"

The employee looked up again and was instantly trapped in the clutches of her control.

"I am your cousin, got it? You're going to take me in to look around, and let me take what I want," she explained.

The man instantly stood up and opened the door behind him. Vriska followed him in, noting how he locked the door once she was in, and then shouted to the owner how he was showing his cousin round.

"Like I give a fuck," a voice shouted from a room in the back. Rude! Well Vriska certainly felt no guilt at the intended robbing now.

Upstairs was where all the tents and sleeping rolls were, he explained, and asked if she wanted any help choosing suitable equipment.

"I want something compact and lightweight for four people, same goes for blankets and mats but for three,"

"Well our most lightweight tent for four is made from our secret company exclusive fabrics and is suitable for all terrains save the harshest extremes, and including pegs and poles, comes to just under one kilogram,"

"Is it sturdy though?'

"Of course. The pegs are wide screw pegs, which hold it secure in most terrains, as well as being lightweight. As for compact, with but a flick of the switch and the removal of the support poles, the memory alloys will return the main body of the tent into its folded form, which is the size of an A4 sheet of paper. This foes into the bag, along with the pegs, a tarp for added water proofing, and the inner lining of the tent. This bag, provided the other parts are folded right, is also A4 size, and ten centimetres thick,"

Vriska was sold.

Eventually they would be travelling overland, and she was well aware that the bunch of them would be needing shelter while doing so. Though seeing as one of them would be keeping watch throughout the night, she did not need four copies of the sleeping bags and so on.

Next up, he showed her all manner of sleeping bag and mat combinations. Vriska eventually settled upon a sleeping bag whose base could inflate into a thin mat, and roll up admittedly not that thin for their times at fifteen centimetres thick, but was light and incredibly warm. she took three, and settled upon a large rucksack as well, into which she placed a pair of portable solar panels, a couple of pans and a chunky swiss army knife (she had _always_ wanted one), along with other assorted goodies the employee under her control thought she could use. She pulled a face when offered the chewy sweet brand the Handmaid had been feeding them though. Too soon...

Once the bag was swung onto her back, Vriska was grudgingly impressed at how light it was considering the amount inside, though given she had been running about with bags full of tins of food for the past few weeks, this bag was a breeze.

She was about to walk out the shop, then realised she had over two-thousand dollars worth of goods on her back. Popping her head round the corner of the door, she spoke to the other employee, and using her powers, convinced the pair of them that the goods she had essentially stolen had all been faulty. There.

It was a long hike back to Sollux, but she made it, and climbed up the tree he was hidden in to meet him. The pair of them were over heated and stank of sweat, and after sharing his bottle of water, she showed him the goods she had gotten so far.

"Hide them up here. I'm going to go back for more, so wait until I'm back to meet HM and Tavros, okay?"

"Yeah yeah, I heard the plan too, Vrithka," Sollux replied dryly, face glued to his phone screen, yet was pleased at the solar panels.

Returning to the use of her old backpack, Vriska set back off into the town again. By the time she returned, the sun was beginning to sink down once more, which was understandable given she had left early in the morning.

Vriska decided to spend the next half hour exploring the shops, and picking up the odd dried meat packet, and other nonperishables. Unsurprisingly, she also picked up a punnet of fresh peaches and a bag of mangetout as they were all craving fresh fruit and vegetables (a sentence Sollux thought he would never utter). Unlike the camping gear, the food she bought was stupidly heavy. How she was ever going to carry lentils, beans, spices and a big bag of rice about was beyond her... though splitting it between the four of them would substantially lighten the load. Still, for now she was simply thankful that it was not as heavy as the bags they had been carrying about in the tunnels.

There seemed to be a lot more policemen about than in the morning, and upon noticing, Vriska slunk away into the shadows, before ducking into a clothes shop.

Wow!

Looking about revealed an odd grouping of young men and women, and the current fashions. It seemed that tiny mutantesque horns on headbands were in fashion (much like those being worn at the ball the cerulean blood attended not so long ago), along with big, billowing cardigans and loose fitting harem pants. No wonder Vriska had been attracting odd looks! With her tight fitting vest and only somewhat baggy boiler suit, she stuck out like a sore thumb, and simply assumed most had been eccentrics. Of course, the bright red hair she sported did not help her blend in either.

Well, regardless of the strange patterns on them, the thick cardigans did look cosy, and would help them stick in better. But she would have to buy them somewhere else; there were too many people in Vriska's current shop. As she left, she bumped into a stern looking woman, who sneered at her as Vriska ducked her head to avoid her horns hitting the door frame. Lousy goddamn stupid low doorways.

The next clothes shop held much of the same fashion, and unlike the last, was virtually empty save for a shop assistant sorting clothes on the top floor.

Seeing all the clothes reminded Vriska of her sister, who had been a huge fashion victim (though hell if she knew where the kid had gotten it from). It was funny to think that her sister would likely be wearing the same sort of clothes, unless she had changed a lot while growing up... she would be fourteen now, a sobering thought for Vriska. It was not as if she would be able to see her family any time in the near future, and so like most of the mutants, she tried not to think of her family. Luckily for her she had not liked them a whole lot in the first place, and only really missed her sister now and again.

It was funny to think what would have happened if her little sister had been the one to inherit Mindfang's genes. Vriska was not entirely sure what would happen in the village (as her sister had never siphoned so would probably find it hard to deal with all the death). The idea of her being in Team Eight instead of Vriska made the Brit giggle though.

After a few minutes she headed upstairs to where the yellow blood assistant was, and after making sure they were alone Vriska approached her.

"Oh, hi, can I help?" the young woman asked, clutching a stack of clothes to her chest.

"Yes," replied Vriska with a smirk. "I would like a pair of those huge fluffy cardigans please, in blue and red"

As the assistant went to fetch the sweaters, the Brit milled about on the top floor, picking up a set of horns that looked like that of an oryx, and slid them on, careful to put them on behind her existing invisible horns. Heh. The oryx horns looked damn good on her, though she likely would have thought she suited all horns.

"Here they are!" the assistant chirped, and Vriska quickly pulled the fake horns off. That was embarrassing...

They were of a good quality, and so she decided to get them. Once the bag was secured to her bag, she walked towards the exit, and stopped to have a quick look in the mirror, not noticing how her horns were disturbing display items over the glass until a scarf fell on her head, which she quickly put back, hoping no one saw.

Well that was it for the day, she decided, and so Vriska turned and began to set off down the main road once more. The stalls she passed were beginning to pack up, and as she passed the last stall before the station, she noticed the familiar looking blankets... and then her blood ran cold.

The goods on the stall were the same as those in the tunnel's bunkers. There was no doubt about it. Of course, they could just be the same brand, but it still set Vriska into a panic. They were not safe here; they would have to move.

The chatter had dulled down in the town, and Vriska could hear a busker playing soft jazz music somewhere. Fear drove her feet forwards though, sending her plunging through the patches of long, cold shadow that stretched down the roads.

Once she reached the station, she stopped the light jog she had settled into and took a peach from the punnet before securing her rucksack again.

The peach was delicious and perfectly ripe, and it took all her concentration to not drop her disguise while eating it.

"Stop," ordered a sudden voice from behind Vriska, and her fight or flight instincts suddenly flared into action, at war with each other.

After a second of being frozen, she turned, having forgotten that she could simply control her if needed.

Behind her stood the stern teal blooded woman from the clothes shop, but now she was holding a gun.

"If you move, I will shoot. You are under arrest and will be returned to the Retainment Organisation, Vriska Serket,"

With a sneer, Vriska attempted to control her, but realised after a second of confusion that she could not connect with the woman's mind.

"You will not be able to use your powers on me, mutant" she said, and Vriska noticed the strange looking visor covering her eyes. They must have improved upon Doc Scratch's goldfish bowl thing. Fuck.

At the word mutant, several of the people in the station cowered away from the cerulean-blood.

Vriska had not felt true fear for her wellbeing in a long time; her powers had protected her for years for all except the odd mutant who proved resistant… but such a thing had never happened with a human before.

"I'm clearly not a mutant!" she lied smoothly, seeing if she could talk her way out of her predicament. "Look! No grey, no horns, I'm just a lost tourist,"

"I've been following you, and I saw your horns displace several items, even though they are not visible. I know you have powerful mental manipulation powers, thus it is not entirely possible that you could disguise yourself,"

"And if I'm not this Vritka or whoever you're talking about?"

"Then you will be released unharmed. Now come along,"

**== Just run!**

Taking a deep breath, Vriska did her best to look submissive, then suddenly leapt forwards, smacking the stun gun from the woman's hand before she had a chance to shoot. The gun skidded away into the hands of a refugee, but Vriska had already begun running at this point.

Rather than getting the gun back, the woman sped after the mutant. Losing her would prove more costly than not having the stun gun.

After a less than a minute of sprinting, Vriska was already beginning to tire thanks to the big bag of food on her back. She would have dropped it, but their supplies in the bunker were starting to run out thus she could not afford to lose any food.

But where was there to go?

There were only the train tracks, the fence on either side, and at the end, the sea. Vaulting over the fence seemed like a good option at first, but the heavy bag would make her slow, and the teal blood would catch up to her… but it was not as if she could keep running to the sea; Vriska could swim, but not well enough to escape, and especially with a bag on her back…

UGH!

What was she to do?

The woman, who was presumably a guard, was about 10-20 metres behind Vriska judging by how close her shouting and footsteps seemed. At least she no longer had the gun!

After a few more minutes of running, Vriska decided to drop the disguise, and found her head immediately felt clearer, though resulted in the guard sprinting to catch up with renewed vigour. Crap, maybe she should have made herself look like a different troll to screw with the guard's head… like Eridan! But then Vriska had not seen Eridan in a while and could not quite remember what he looked like, though admittedly the guard probably had not seen him enough to know what he looked like either.

Well whatever, it was too late anyway!

If she got out of this however, Vriska vowed to freak out her teammates by transforming into their various mutant friends.

After another five minutes of flat out sprinting, both had begun to tire. The only reason Vriska had an advantage was due to her increased strength as a mutant, and her much longer legs, though they were mostly negated by all the fucking food she was carrying.

Sprinting slowly became running, which then became a carefully placed jog.

They were fast approaching the path which led to the entrance to the tunnels. Vriska had to choose whether to jump the fence, and quickly.

Due to it being one of the few areas where one could jump the fence without hitting a wall of cacti, before the tracks reached the sea, Vriska decided to go for it.

She feigned movement for jumping across the right hand exit, then sharply turned left and vaulted the fence, yet to her horror she could not jump high enough. At the last moment of the jump, her toe caught the top of the fence, and she fell hard onto the ground.

Yet there was no time to lick wounds, she leapt to her feet, cradling an injured arm while she ran, thanking her luck that the teal blood had not caught up fully... though having two metres on someone was barely an advantage... The situation reminded her a little of the last time she had been badly injured, also by a teal blood.

All her body hurt. The boiler suit had prevented any scrapes forming on her legs, but her palms and arms were not so lucky. On top of the physical pain, her body hurt from the stress placed on it. Her lungs ached and her sides burned from vicious stitches.

The only sounds were the slapping of feet on hard ground, and heavy panting, and the sun was sinking in the sky far too rapidly for Vriska's liking.

There was nothing more she could do than murder the woman. After all, she no longer had the stun gun, so it would be easy, yet the only weapons Vriska had were her Fluorite Octet, and if she missed or got some shitty attack, then there was no second chance; the Handmaid had not fully taught her how to pull the dice back using their ingrained telekinesis.

But then again, if she murdered the woman, then the Condesce would know something strange had occurred, and would possible send more guards and soldiers in to catch them. No, there was only one choice. Vriska would have to remove the device preventing the woman from mind control, and get her to leave of her own accord.

But how?

Vriska's best bet was to hope to all her lucky stars that the dice attack would not be lethal, and attempt to knock her out.

They were fast approaching a clearing in the sparsely forested area, where the shadows grew ever longer as the sun set. Perfect, except for how she could just about see the glint of the abandoned machinery near the tunnels in the distance.

Pushing her hand deeply into her pocket, she crossed the fingers on her free hand, turned and thew the dice onto the floor.

83638848, or 33468888...

The dice emitted a shrill noise that made Vriska's sensitive ears ache like nothing else. This was followed by a strange popping sound accompanying huge amounts of smoke pouring into the air about them.

In less than a second, all that was visible was the thick black smoke that clung to Vriska's clothes and made her eyes sting. Wonderful, she scowled as she patted down the ground for the dice.

Thankfully they had landed close together, and she was quickly back on her feet.

Unlike the human woman, the mutant's ears were sensitive enough to pick up the subtle sounds of the rustling caused guards leg muscles twitching and disturbing the dry leaves.

Vriska twitched her ears into a perked and alert position to maximise the noises she picked up, then inched her way towards the guard as silently as possible. It seemed that the woman was but a few metres ahead, but that did not guarantee which way she was facing.

Frustrated at how she would not be able to aim to grab the mind control device without vision, Vriska opened her eye with the vision eightfold and squinted through the cloud in an attempt to see, yet the fog was far too acrid, and every time she thought she was getting somewhere, she would have to screw her eyes shut again in pain.

Fuck it, she decided, and leapt forward, aiming above where she thought she could hear breathing coming from, and found her fingers closing around a flexible plastic like case filled with some sort of gel. Bingo?

Judging by the shriek of fury from the woman, Vriska decided that she must have removed the anti-mind control device.

"Well," Vriska said, her hand resting on the guard's shoulder. "This is an impressive device I'll admit. But how come you were fooled by my disguise if it stops mind control?"

"How the hell should I know? I didn't make it, I'm a soldier!" the human spat at Vriska while wriggling furiously to escape from her grip, yet it was no use, her limbs simply did not want to move. "What are you going to do with me? I've already alerted the rest of the guards to come,"

Vriska gave a patient smile, "I'm going to make you forget," She then manipulated the woman into explaining how she had made a mistake, and that the girl she had been hunting really was not a mutant after all.

Then, she spent a few minutes sorting her way through the memories and forcing her brain to believe the lie she had just told the rest if the guards over her radio. It was an incredibly tiring process, unlike when she had convinced the two shop keepers that their goods had been defective, due to the resilience and certainty in the woman's mind that Vriska had been a mutant. Eventually she got it, and after placing up her disguise once more, and placing the glasses back on, broke control on the woman's mind.

The human blunk slowly, as if waking from a dream, then saw Vriska and leapt to her feet.

"Sorry, ma'am. Please continue with your day," she said, then turned and began the long walk back into town. Once she was out of sight, Vriska sighed and sank down into a seated position with her back resting on a tree. Pulling out her bottle, she took three large swigs of water then poured the last few drops onto her forehead to cool down. She was right next to the tunnels anyway.

The sun was almost gone now, staining the sky a beautiful array of bright obnoxious colours that Terezi would have plenty of fun smelling, and beside her hopped a small bird. While pecking about in the ground, it grew bold enough to come within a metre of Vriska, which she found amusing.

It was all going to be okay again.

A couple metres from the tunnel entrance was the campfire from the previous night. It was a shame they would have to leave, it could have been so lovely next to the ocean...

She hopped down into the tunnels, activated the vision eightfold and began the slow walk to where they hid in the bunker. With the amount her legs were shaking however, it could be quite some time until she actually reached it. Rest was vital though, and running would only cause her exhausted body to collapse.

All was fine until the pungent smell of blood smacked her in the face.

Fuck.

All thoughts of rest flew out the window as she readied the dice in her hand and hobbled down the tunnels as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, one of the things vision eightfold could not do was see in colour, and so the blood that covered the floor was a mystery to her until Vriska pulled out her torch and was briefly blinded.

Copious amounts of orange blood had been spilled, and the sight of it made Vriska's chest tighten and feel something she did not feel often: worry and dread.

Mixed with the orange were small amounts of teal and rust red, but in no where near the volumes of the orange. Fuck fuck fuck...

Orange was still leaking somewhat from beneath the door to the bunker, but other than the dripping it seemed no noise was coming from the room.

Slowly, slowly Vriska opened the door, then peered her head round, only to met with a surprising sight.

Passed out and propped up against the wall were a trio of the Condesce's agents. two teal bloods, and an orange blood with a number of wounds. At this sight, Vriska broke out in a grin, though noted that neither the Handmaid nor Tavros were visible. Huh. None of their things were about either...

The spark of hope that had returned to Vriska was quickly extinguished as she paced increasingly franticly about the room, looking for any trace of the Handmaid and Tavros's whereabouts. Frustrated at the lack of clues, she then turned to the guards, and began rummaging through their pockets for any goods or information.

Two of the three carried maps of the tunnels and the corresponding land above, with one map missing... The dread returned and sat heavily in Vriska's stomach.

Surely they would not have left without a word?! Surely not! And yet it was looking increasingly likely...

In the corner where they left their stuff, Vriska noticed that in her haste, she had forgotten that her blanket was being used as padding beneath her bag straps, and had assumed the expanse of materiel on the floor had been hers. It was not.

Vriska scooped up the blanket, and to her shock, out tumbled Tinkerbull. At first, she did not know whether to be shocked that Tavros still had his toy with him, or surprised at how he had managed to leave it behind _now_ of all times. But regardless of that, there Tinkerbull was. Frustrated at the days events, Vriska could not help but hurl the poor toy across the room to relieve some of her stress.

What use was a toy to her?

She sat moping for a few minutes, then slunk to pick Tinkerbull up. What she had not previously noticed, however, was the small bit of paper rolled tightly against the ribbon tied about the plushie's neck.

On one side, it showed a hastily drawn map of some location, and on the other read: were attaked by guards Following us in tunnels for long time. Escaped (just) but have to stay In tunnels obv. Meet us here (hint north mountins) stay safe 3 T

Vriska was ammused by Tavros' spelling and grammar, and even more amused by how he had written out the less-than-three-symbol instead of just drawing a proper, upright heart. Nerd. Cute as that was though, she did not know what to do with the message contained. North mountains? Perhaps the location was somewhere on the maps the guards carried.

After removing their anti a mind control devices, Vriska tugged out one of their maps once more, and laid it out on the floor to study it.

North mountains... North mountains...

Well the furthest area north with tunnels were those in Colorado... and they were definitely under mountains. Satisfied, she began to attempt lining up her mini map with the proper map, and eventually found an area at the end of a tunnel system that opened out near a marked settlement. That was probably it!

Vriska then circled the location and put the map in her bag. It was by no means convenient, but it would have to do.

Now to throw off the scent.

Taking the remaining map, Vriska plucked up a narrow edged splinter of wood from the shelving units, and roughly traced an area of land from the south, making sure to leave light indents. Hopefully they would see such marks as a lead. Hopefully...

Well, Tavros and the Handmaid were gone, and that made her feel hollow inside, but there was nothing she could do about it. First things first, Vriska would have to deal with the guards. But how? There was no knowing when they would wake, and no guaranteeing that it would be a simple quick job of convincing them they had not seen the mutants they had...

Well, more mind control from Vriska then.

Squatting before the first teal blood, Vriska softly slid off their strange head gear so she could access their eyes, then woke them and began the tedious work of reworking the woman's memories. She then implanted the same memories into the minds of the other two guards. The story was: while routinely checking each bunker they came across, the trio encountered a puma that had gotten lost and ended up hiding in the bunker due to smelling the food, but were rescued by a kind young woman. After adding some more wounds to them to fit the puma story, Vriska smirked, put on her disguise again and woke them.

"Gosh, are you alright?" asked Vriska in an almost over the top manner, her voice dripping with concern. "Do you feel well?"

The guards moaned, clutching their now painful wounds tightly.

"The fuck is this?" one guard muttered to another.

"Do you need any help?" Vriska said somewhat louder.

At this, the trio looked up at her, their expressions unreadable behind the masks. Had she been another person, she may have been worried that her mind control had not worked, yet Vriska being Vriska had full confidence in her powers. Sure enough, the female teal blood said, "Oh, you're the girl who helped us!"

Vriska made a somewhat self-deprecating bow and smiled sheepishly, "Yep, that's me! I scared the puma off so hopefully it won't be back any time soon. Though you three gave it quite a fright too thankfully, so thank you on behalf of those of us who, um, work down here,"

"You work down here?" the orange blood questioned, sounding concerned as Vriska wrapped some of the bandages they had in the shelter around one of his arm wounds. The guard in question was a young man in his late twenties with pleasant enough features, and seemed to be susceptible to her charms. Good, seeing as there was no longer a way to control them into telling her things (a stupid thing to forget to do). "That's crazy, these tunnels are dangerous as fuck.

"Oh yes," she replied brightly. "But I can more than handle myself. We come down here to salvage goods from the bunkers, and sell them on. Business has boomed since the flooding, which is a big of a double-edged sword,"

"Wow, I had no idea," he replied.

"What were you three doing down here anyway? Are you salvagers too?" Vriska made sure to sound as naïve as possible.

"Thank you for the help, but we must be going now," the male teal blood said coldly, stood up, and left the room, followed shortly by the other teal blood.

At this, the orange blood looked back and forth between the door and Vriska, then quickly muttered, "We're looking for four mutant fugitives,"

"No way! Really?"

"Yeah, they're crazy dangerous, so be super careful okay?"

"Will do. I feel safer already knowing you guys are down here protecting us though," smiled Vriska shyly. "Be careful, alright?"

"Will do ma'am!" He went towards the door, wincing a little when moving his shoulder when Vriska lurched forward and grabbed his arm. "Huh?"

"I just remembered something, though it's probably irrelevant, um," Trying her best to look coy, she tucked her hair behind her ear and looked down at the ground, pushing her chest out. "Some of our people further north have been spreading rumours about ghosts running about. We assumed they were just a bunch of refugees with those horns that are fashionable at the moment, but maybe not?"

The man turned to face her, "Can you tell anything about their whereabouts?"

"Seemed to most of those who saw them that they were heading in a southerly direction. Maybe they're trying to escape to Mexico?"

"That's incredibly helpful, thanks for your help. We'll let our southern team know when we next get above ground. We should be close to an opening now though-"

"Oh no!" Vriska interrupted. "You don't want to take that opening, it's been flooded over in the recent storms up above. Take the one after, it's safer. Though of course it could be fine by now so make your own call I guess!"

"Thanks for the advice, ma'am." he smiled, not that she could see his face, then turned to leave.

Well thank God that was sorted. Seeing as she was a cerulean blood, the guards would probably take her advice and put off exiting at that hole. Best to wait a few minutes for them to leave though, just to be safe.

Now onto the next dilemma. No doubt it was nighttime outside by now, and now there was the issue of finding Sollux, who was still going to be sat in the tree, and break the news to him. Though she would never admit it to his face, the idea of seeing his face after all the drama that has happened was a comforting thought to Vriska. An island of normality amongst the change and fear.

Before any of that, though, the cerulean blood packed away a bunch more food and supplies she could need into her backpack, along with the remaining blanket (Sollux's probably) before taking one last took at the bunker. It was more than a little pathetic to think about, but in all honesty, she had probably spent the best days of her life in this bunker, or the space above. Days with friends and laughter and freedom. Okay, so maybe friends was a bit of a stretch, but they certainly got along better than she did with most other people. Team Eight were all she had now, and so Vriska was going to try her damn hardest to find them again, because fuck if the Condesce was going to take away even more of what was hers.

The mostly empty shelves sat in darkness once more as Vriska shut the door, and the drip drop of the leaky tap would be heard by no one for another year, not until a strange set of travellers would find themselves seeking shelter beneath the ground of a desert. But that was another story entirely.

Knowing she was completely alone now gave the tunnels a very different feel. Walking through the corridors with the other mutants for company was creepy as it was, but a sense of safety in numbers made the ragtag group feel better, especially seeing as three of the four had powerful metaphysical abilities. Besides, as the Handmaid would tell Tavros whenever he felt creeped out, they were in all honesty the scariest things down there. It gave little comfort when armed with the knowledge that they were indeed being stalked by the Condesce's guards the entire time, though. What else could be down here, Vriska now asked herself.

Every footstep echoed maddeningly loud, regardless of how softly she placed her feet. At least the sounds helped give her a better idea of the dimensions of the path ahead, a concept which amused her a little, but not enough to erase the nagging fear of what was hiding in the darkness. It was times like these when Vriska was thankful for the absences of the ghosts Aradia had sent after her.

Several times Vriska swore she could hear the low murmur of voices coming from behind her, or the rapid pattering of footsteps. Of course, nothing ever came of these fears, but still, the sudden racing of her heart as she trudged forwards was annoying at best. Towards the end of her journey, a noise thrust its way through the darkness that was seemed so close and disturbing that she broke into a panicked run, with painful prickling at the corner of each eye as she held back cobalt tears.

All of the creepy noises. All of it. And at such a bad time...

"Tavros has rubbed off on you," she told herself fiercely after a sharp pinch to the arm. "I am Vriska Serket. I do not run at stupid fakey fake fake noises."

The sight of the ladder made her body tingle with relief, and she ascended quicker than she ever had before.

Opening the hatch revealed a beautiful canopy of stars beginning to peak out from the fading hues of the sunset, with the sun just about to sink below the horizon. It looked almost as if it was being swallowed by the sea, which was an amusing thought. Though in a way, almost everything was being swallowed by the sea at the moment.

Vriska thought back to the strange many tentacled creature she swore she saw once in an opening to an immense pool back at the Retainment Organisation. What if there had been another reason that the Condesce had flooded the earth... no. It did not do to think of such things when right beside the sea.

In the walk to where Sollux was hidden, Vriska noticed two things. One, that where she and the guard had fought, the black smoke had stained the ground and leaves around it. Odd. Two, that the cardigans Vriska had bought had dropped off her bag while running... This was found out by finding the fallen bag beside the fence she had hurdled over. Huh.

Oh well. No harm done... hopefully.

Sollux was still a few minutes away, but the dark and cold were settling down heavily, so Vriska began a light jog.

Everything is going to be okay, she told herself as she wandered about the strange looking forest's floor.

After another five minutes of searching, she came across the bag with the tent and supplies in, secured high up in a tree. Great.

She dumped her bag on the floor, then coaxed her aching muscles into climbing up the branches until she reached the rucksack. But before she returned to the ground, she looked about for the yellow blood. Perhaps he was simply hiding in a different tree to mess with her? Yet... she could see nothing but branches, leaves and the odd roosting bird.

"Sollux?" she whispered harshly. "Come here, stop fucking around!"

No reply.

"Sollux?" she said again, this time at normal speaking level. Swishing her ears back and forth to pick up more noise did nothing for her though. There was still no reply.

Panic spread through her body like a virus as she looked franticly about her. "_SOLLUX_!" she screamed, and was met again with silence.

Climbing down was harder than climbing up, but after a few minutes she was back at ground level.

"Fuck," muttered Vriska as she slid down into a seated position, her back resting against the solid mass of a tree trunk. "What am I going to do..."

Her ear picked up nothing, no telltale signs that a human was approacing.

Vriska was alone.

An overwhelming sense of emptyness filled her body, and tears began to prick at the corners of her eyes once more.

The three of them were gone, and she had been left behind.

Left, alone, useless.

Where was Sollux? Surely he should have been here... yet he was not. Clearly he had gone back to be with the others and was there to run off at the attack.

Useless good for nothing.

Sure, they could have waited, but as if they would have waited for you, she thought. '_I'm a nasty massive bitch! It's no wonder they all leapt at the chance to leave. But no matter, I don't need a bunch of wimps travelling with me anyway_,'

Though... said wimps would have made good company, especially considering the trek she would have to complete overground.

_If_ she made the trek at all, that is. This would be the perfect escape she was longing for just the other day. Vriska could live freely now with the use of her ability to change appearances. It would be a fresh start away from the Retainment Organisation and her siphoning past... she could be free...

After a good few minutes of squeezing and shoving, Vriska managed to get her bag into the larger rucksack, and OOF it was heavy...

Well. This is where the cerulean blood would decide what to do with her life. Either she left to start anew, or reunited with the few people who could put up with her. Sure, the Handmaid and Sollux were her friends, and who knew what Tavros was to her right now... but it would be easy enough to make new friends right? Right? Though any new friends she made would have to remain in the dark about her true identity as a mutant, due to the vast amounts of fear surrounding them prompting people to turn mutants in (not to mention the excessive rewards offered for the capture of one). Having to keep up the pretence of being normal all the time was a daunting prospect.

Well, who needs friends anyway! Vriska had never been one to surround herself with friends. Lackeys, absolutely! Friends, ehh maybe the odd person who could put up with her bullshit.

Without realising it, Vriska had already set off towards the train tracks that would lead her on the path to Colorado.

'_Well I guess it wouldn't hurt to travel there and see what happens along the way_,' she told herself, but made no promises to meet up with those who she decided had abandoned her. But thinking of the kisses she and Tavros had shared the previous night made her stomach feel strange and her face hot... and her heart felt a surge of warmth when she pictured the soft, kind looks he had given her as she cried. She then remembered the unwavering support and belief in her skills that the Handmaid showed throughout the years they had been stuck in the Retainment Organisation, then the honesty and companionship from Sollux, and a similar warmth filled her heart.

"Fuck," Vriska sighed, wondering why she had go through an emotional flashback as punishment every time she thought of straying from her companions. "Colorado it is then!"

The residual warmth of past affections was to be her sole companion however, and at that thought her heart felt heavy once more in her chest.

Best she got moving, for dark was closing in, and were Tavros' stories to be believed, the big cats that stalked these parts would be closing in rapidly...

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** It's all getting a bit angsty! It'll stop being quite so angsty soon, but it's still going to be p serious. Also, I'm sure I've said this before, but the section with the guard chasing Vriska then fighting her was the first bit I came up with in this story, which I actually based off a weird dream! Except in the dream, the guard was taken out by getting in one of the big machines near the tunnels opening in a sort of Pacific Rim exit. I figured that would be a bit over the top for knocking some glasses off the guard though!

Anyway, thank you so much for all the lovely reviews! I'm having a rough time atm with a bunch of people, so seeing your comments really puts a smile on my face :)

Also, we're really gonna start to alternate only between basically four different POVs soon, so heads up for that, though I'll try to include most of the characters antics. Also I'm starting uni again in a few days! I was working 9am to 9pm several days, so as you can imagine I dont have a lot of time to write when there, but I'll do my best to get more writing done this year :)

Also wow, 291 reviews so far! THANK YOUU! Let's see if we can get to 300 on this chapter :D

Thank you again for reading! O^O


	28. Underwater Level

**== Be someone else**

You are now Karkat Vantas.

A hand slammed down on the table before the three mutants.

"They knew! Somehow they knew, and now I have to deal with it," the Condesce growled. "Dirty rotten fuckers."

Looking up from her clenched fists, the troll fixed her gaze upon Terezi, who was in the centre of the mutant trio. Her glare was furious and so intense than none could so much as move a muscle - even breathing became difficult – but none before her so much as flinched while they could.

Karkat, Terezi and Eridan were well used to the Condesce's mood swings, and after over three years of her bullshit, very little of her behaviour could phase them. Much of the same could be said of the other three remaining mutants. Though they usually spoke to Doc Scratch for missions and general information, when there was a fuck up or a major mission, they were sent to the head honcho herself, which was never preferable.

A large amount of spirits were poured into a glass the Condesce pulled out, which she drank straight and in one go, shortly followed by a gag of disgust. The alcohol to her mind broke the control, and the three mutants attempted to catch their breath as subtly as possible. Though she was clearly already reasonably drunk, the fishbitch took another drink, this time swigging straight from the bottle, then poured one more full glass of the stuff, and after a little thought placed a pair of ice cubes in, ignoring the splash of vodka onto her desk… or perhaps she did not notice.

Holding it up before her, she looked at the three teens before her, squinting a little, then said, "Here, mini-sufferer. You look like you need this most," Karkat took the drink, albeit in a somewhat hesitant manner. "Drink up."

Having been only thirteen when he was abducted by this woman, as had the rest of them, he did not have a particularly good tolerance for alcohol, nor any taste for it. His father had given him bits of watered down wine to taste as a kid, which inevitably put him off it immensely.

Nonetheless he took a small sip and grimaced visibly, prompting the Condesce to snap, "Down it. Helps with the taste. Fucking cheap ass industrial vodka."

**== Down it! Down it!**

With a small frown, Karkat tilted his head back and drank the spirit in several glugs without pausing for breath. It burnt the back of his throat and brought to mind paint stripper. Ugh. His eyes squeezed together and he wished more than anything to have another drink to wash the taste away, but as there was nothing, he settled for crunching one of the icecubes between his teeth.

Just about audible behind him was Eridan muttering something about him being unable to hold his drink, and had they not been infront of one of the most powerful women on the planet, he would have punched that smirk off his face. Well… Karkat made a well-informed _guess_ that the sea-dweller was grinning, which he indeed was.

"Well anyway, I need to tell you why you're here," The Condesce said after an extended period of staring into space with a pronounced frown on her face. "I need you, to go into that little bitch's house and gun him down. Or blow it up or, ehh, whatever."

The Condesce then began detailing the mission they would be leaving on the next day, but Karkat could not for the life of him focus. His eyes felt dry all of a sudden, and his limbs distant, and his mind kept drifting off to somewhere else, a better time maybe, because that was a valuable fucking use of his concentration of _course_.

"Hey, kid, did you eat anything today?" the troll asked after giving his face a slap. How oddly motherly! He shook his head, as he had been feeling too ill to eat, to which she replied with. "Figures, though I guess you're still pretty human so whatever the fuck this percentage is probably gonna mess with you regardless of having an empty stomach or not."

But did any of it really matter? What did matter? There they all were, a bunch of mutated monkeys, in a… a room with like six walls… was she a bee? The Condesce? The Queen Bee. Hmm.

The world seemed to be spinning about him as the drink began to have more of an effect, and before long a heavy feeling of wrongness and nausea set in.

In between the haze of the alcohol and trying to focus on keeping himself sitting upright long enough not to fall over, he registered a little of what the Condesce was saying. Talking of focus, images were starting to double… that was not normal right?

Was _Karkat_ a bee?

Or a wasp?

He hoped he was a bee because wasps were dickheads. Though he would rather be a human being but beggars certainly cannot be choosers.

But Sollux was _way_ into bees, and fuck if he wanted to be like that computer loving geek.

"To summari… need you to go to the presidential… Eridan will get you in and… rkat will provide the defence if you two can stop fucking bickering for a minute… don't let them out of your… Fucking pay attention will you?"

If he was a bee then he would be able to just fly out and escape through an open window… in an underground bunker… okay maybe…

Maybe not? Maybe? Maybe not?

Flying would be amazing though, right? Or would they expend loads of petrol on… no that was airplanes maybe. Not flying people. That was different.

"What?" he croaked, and upon noticing the dry sandpaper-like feel to his throat coughed… but more came up than usual.

A splattering of bright mutant-red blood sat obnoxiously on his palm, and out of habit more than conscious thought, he wiped it away on his trousers, but his body was quickly overtaken with coughing spasms again, and much more blood emerged.

Karkat spent a moment thinking about how pretty the weird liquid looked. It reminded him of that artist they studies excessively the few weeks before he was kidnapped. Splatter art.

"Ew, fuck, a mutant blood!"

"Karkat are you okay?"

Voices floating about him.

A warm liquid was dribbling down his chin. What was that all about? Was this a drooling thing? That would be embarrassing, especially in front of Terezi.

Terezi.

Her eyes matched the red covering his hands and arms and face and clothes and…

God his eyelids were dry.

Cshtt cshtt. Blink. Blink.

You were not supposed to hear your eyelids, right?

Was the desk that close before? Fuck. Approaching desk at 12 o clock.

CLONK!

Karkat's head smacked hard against the desk as he passed out. His skull bounced off it, and he fell from his chair, head briefly landing on Terezi's lap before sliding off. Body fully on the floor, the blood painted a story about him.

The story read: do not give semi-human teenagers 96% alcohol, especially not in large amounts you fucking nitwitted fish alien.

**==Oh GOD. Is Karkat okay?**

Karkat will probably survive.

**== Okay, thanks. Be Karkat when he's better.**

You are now Karkat Vantas the next morning, and you have not felt this bad since someone tried to set you alight. A story for another day.

A powerful throbbing began pounding at the back of the mutant-blood's skull, accompanied by a rough throat in dire need of some water and possibly crackers, or whatever would stay down in his stomach.

Karkat opened his eyes a crack and immediately regretted it: the strong lighting near blinded him, thus he quickly retreated beneath the covers for safety.

Suddenly a voice sneered, "_How's you my favourite motherfucker all about feeling now_?"

Fuck. Not the time, not the time at all for Gamzee.

Another attempt at opening his eyes, and Karkat found himself in a small medical room with a doctor by his bedside. Looming above him was the enormous form of the Capricorn, a collar about his neck, and on the end of the attached chain was the Condesce looking somewhat glum.

The sight of Gamzee essentially acting like an oversized guard dog to the much smaller Condesce almost sent the poor mutant-blood into a fit of laughter, but judging by the state his throat was in, it would only cause him pain. Oh well, she would probably kill him for laughing at her anyway.

Karkat began to reply, but sure enough, the damage the alcohol had done to his throat caused him intense pain, and he doubled over with tears prickling in the corners of his eyes.

"I would recommend against talking, Mr Vantas," the doctor said in a shaky voice, and he noticed that the woman was avoiding both the Condesce and Gamzee's gazes.

"Hey, if the kid got asked a question then he has to answer it," the Condesce shot back haughtily, making the poor doctor flinch, but nonetheless decided to move on, deciding they were boring, or perhaps she had other people to terrorise.

"Later, my fine bro."

Once they had left, the doctor, a maroon-blood, offered Karkat a glass of water, which he gratefully accepted. To his surprise it was not water at all, but rather a thick, syrupy liquid that tasted pleasingly sugary and seemed to smooth down the roughness.

"What… happened?" he managed to croak between sips.

"The Condesce gave you an incredibly strong alcoholic drink by mistake, you suffered a great deal for it. Luckily you were admitted quickly, thus you will be ready to leave in a few hours,"

A few hours? He still felt like absolute garbage, but then he had only ever received medical care from his father, and upon coming to the Retainment Organisation, the medical care a low-blood would be given. Perhaps it was normal for high-bloods to have such rapid results.

"Your mission is to be carried out at eight in the evening, no exceptions," the doctor relayed, before leaving the room.

Crap. Being sent on a mission he had not a clue about was bad enough, but from what he could remember of the night before both Terezi and Eridan had seen his disgusting candy red blood. Possibly the two people he least wanted to see it, other than Gamzee he guessed…

Still, there was no chance Terezi would want anything to do with a mutant-blood. She was beautiful and fierce and clever (though admittedly not when eating chalk) and could do so much better than a freak. There was no chance _anyone_ would want anything to do with a mutant-blood.

Well, there was Kanaya, but had she not found out by mistake, he would not have told her, and though she seemed not to mind he was still immensely self-conscious of the matter. As for Eridan, that guy was so up his own arse about the hemospectrum it was a wonder he even spoke to a guy whose blood looked maroon. He had mellowed recently, but being mutant-blooded and rust-blooded were two very different things.

Exhaling heavily, Karkat rested his face in his palms and contemplated the mission they were about to undertake. Perhaps it was for the best that there was no time to talk the whole blood issue through before hand? If they were all focussed on the work given then there would not be enough time to think about his mutation.

A mutation on top of the other freakish mutations they had to endure. Sometimes Karkat thought that the world should give him a damn break with all the mutation stuff. Grey skin mutant _and_ candy-red blood? COME ON.

The three met in the gear room, and though the other two seemed to be ignoring him as he entered, Karkat was merely relieved that he did not feel as awful as he was earlier. They silently pulled on their gear, which seemed to involve a lot of underwater gear… oh.

Lousy goddamn stupid underwater levels.

"Can anyone _please_ fucking tell me what we're doing?" he grumbled while fiddling with a air tank's straps. "I was kinda preoccupied getting my insides dissolved by an assbrain's window cleaner, or whatever it was,"

"We're being sent to gather information from the president, nubby," Terezi said casually. "Grape-Soda here is going to get us in, as he's basically a fish and our oxygen tanks are holding just enough to get in and out as they're heavy enough. Once he unblocks the way in, the three of us are gonna have to rely on Kanaya's instructions to get to the required room and hope for the best!"

"No offense, but that's the dumbest plan I've ever heard,"

"Wwhat wwould you hawe us do then?" Eridan snarled. Clearly he had not taken the blood colour issue as well as Terezi. Or Perhaps he was simply stressed? "Wwe need the information, an' that's the only wway to get at it. Not that you wwould know seein' as you could barely bother to stay awwake in that meetin',"

"Hey fuck you, nookface, you know full well that I wasn't just goofing off,"

"Wwho knowws wwith your sort,"

Karkat was vaguely aware of Terezi grinning at the situation in the corner while fiddling with some straps, but he was far more interested in Eridan's smug face as he threw an embarrassingly weak punch into the high-bloods nose.

Krrk!

It was not broken by any means, but blood still began to run from the seadweller's nose. Violet blood that showed up shockingly bright on the mutant's ashen skin. Lucky sod. An infuriatingly arrogant smile lit Eridan's face when he realised that Karkat had been looking at his blood, though it soon left as he got back to putting on his suit.

While all three were wearing the same base outfit of a form fitting coverall, Eridan's had two sections that could be rolled up at the sides to expose his second set of gills, which Terezi insisted made him look like some sort of stripper. The coveralls were made of a strange matte material that was split into thousands of tiny scales and had the texture of shark skin. Perhaps it was armour? Whatever it was, it was surprisingly flattering. A small blessing, perhaps.

Over the top of the armour went the air-tanks for Terezi and Karkat, followed by the three of them strapping various weapons and tools needed to their bodies.

Karkat's twin scythes. Kinda lame but they were good at close combat.

Terezi's swordstick. Awesome, but like the scythes, was useless against an enemy with projectile weapons.

Eridan's Alan's CrossMare was it? Alas FlossHairs?

**== Ahab's Crosshairs**

That's the one!

Eridan's Ahab's Crosshairs. A stupidly powerful weapon that should ideally have been given to someone with a little more emotional stability, and a little less hatred towards lowbloods. Coming to think of it, that was probably the exact reason the Condesce had let the violet-blood keep it.

Well it hurt to know that Eridan was going to be a dick about his mutant blood, but Karkat had expected it and in all honesty the sheer relief of Terezi not giving even the slightest fuck near cancelled out the upset. Almost.

The plane ride to the emergency shelter the president had been evacuated to was not nearly as awkward as Karkat had anticipated. Terezi insisted upon trying to get a taste of his 'pretty cherry-red' blood every few minutes, which he denied each time as regardless of how much he had the hots for Terezi, there was no way he was letting that tongue of hers anywhere near him. Who knew where it had been… scratch that, Karkat knew full well now that it had been on the door handle to the pilot's cabin.

"Why can't you keep that goddamn tongue of yours where it belongs! Belongs being, in this situation, inside your fucking mouth, bulgebrain," Karkat sighed as he watched the revolting sight.

"What? It's such a nice shade of yellow, crabby!" Terezi smirked. "Besides there's nothing else in here to taste given that the pair of you are so fucking uptight."

"Oh well _excuse_ me for not wanting your germ riddled tongue all over me! Here, would you like my formal apology in writing or recording, my liege? Anyway, no offence, but why do we even have Eridan with us?"

"Yeah, I should 'a been wwith my team, instead 'a hawin' to stick around wwith a tongue fetishist and a mutant freak,"

Terezi turned from the door handle and stared unnervingly at Eridan, her grin looking even more calculating than normal, "Given that the three of us are all mutants, the only additional thing making him more of a mutant than us is his blood. And given that we originally had the blood colour he has, wouldn't that make us the mutants?"

Eridan frowned and jabbed a finger at her, "That's completely different and you knoww that full wwell! Wwe aren't mutants, wwe wwere genetically engineered if anythin'. An' anywway, I swwear it wwas newer ewen confirmed? The wwhole thin' about candy-red bein' the original an' all that. An' if it is true, then he's just a Neanderthal,"

"It's true, and regardless of what you're blabbering about, it still makes Karkat the most normal of the bunch. Unless you're counting the pilot, that is,"

The pair continued to argue as the flight continued, but Karkat, for once, was in no mood to join in on the fight. Technically he would agree with Eridan's stance, but hell was he going to fight against Terezi; she was a demon in arguments, and plus she was on his side at the moment and he was fucking terrified of losing that.

Conversations continued, but Eridan continued to make it clear that he had lost all respect for the mutant-blood on account of the red pigment to his blood. Having a friend treat him in such a way was new territory, and made him feel useless and small with an intensity that was completely foreign to him.

After perhaps another hour or two, the plane began to loose altitude. The two air-breathers placed the masks in their mouths, whereas Eridan exposed the gills on each side in preparation of the jump.

"The plane isn't going to stop so we're going to have to jump!" shouted Terezi over the wind whistling in from the open door.

"What?" Karkat yelled, not catching her words.

"We're jumping!"

"But I can't dive!"

"Too bad! Mask on, breather in, and go!" Terezi sang, as his gear was all on, then gave him a good shove.

**== Dive!**

You have no idea how to dive. Oh God oh… how were you supposed to dive?

**== Oh, umm, put your legs together and your arms by your side!**

Too late!

Unable to get into the proper position, Karkat ended up approaching the water in a strange position and at speed.

"Fuuuuckkk!"

There went the mouthpiece.

_Flooshhhhhh_!

'_Fuck fuck fuck fuck_!' the mutant-blood screamed internally this time, though too late.

The weights on his sides served only to aid sinking, and the weird dive position combined with the lack of _proper damn training_ resulted in his breathing apparatus being dropped out of his mouth. Screaming while falling was a bad idea apparently. Fucking useless. At least he could see, but fuck, what use was that?

Where was the mouthpiece?

Terezi said something about being able to find it if one stuck their arm… behind your butt and bringing it forwards was it? Maybe? It was night time to begin with, and his increased night vision was near useless as he sank further down. He must have a torch somewhere, but where…

Was he not supposed to have inflated his jacket before diving as well? Maybe if he had been given perhaps one more minute he would have been okay.

After a few more seconds of disorientated struggling, Karkat managed to face upwards, and saw the distant haze of the moon shimmering up on the surface. Well damn, he was a lot further down than he thought.

His chest burnt from the lack of air, but he began to kick his legs none the less… and found himself beginning to get dizzy.

What if there were monsters below him? If mutants like him had evolved from humans, then who knew what had happened to sharks, whales and humboldt squid.

His whole body felt weak and his lungs were starting to spasm to the point that it was hard to keep his mouth shut. But if he opened it, then the water would get in and that would be it.

As if the universe had heard him thoughts and decided to screw him over, a large solid object suddenly grabbed him from below.

Karkat yelled in shock, and let out the last remaining bit of air in his lungs… and into his open mouth went the something wide and plastic. The mouthpiece.

A hand reached round and adjusted the jacket's inflation so that he sat still in the water, moving neither upwards or downwards.

Behind him was Eridan Ampora with an odd expression on his face, which Karkat deciphered as him being worried – not a look he wore often, though the water distorted his expression so he could be wrong. The gentle touches making sure everything was on correctly suggested that Eridan was indeed concerned for Karkat.

The next minute was spent gasping the air in as well as possible when the source was from scuba breathing apparatus. It had not been Karkat's week.

The gills on the seadwellers neck would open wide as they drew in the water needed for respiration, followed shortly by the gills on his sides expelling the used water. It was relaxing to watch while low on oxygen, and so Karkat spent a few more seconds watching, before Terezi joined them. She tapped Karkat's arm and made the 'ok' symbol, asking if he was well.

Karkat responded with an 'ok' symbol as well, which was mirrored by Eridan. They were all good to go. The candy-blood's heart will still pounding, but he put this down to the near death experience. Nearly drowning sucked royally.

Terezi looked somewhat guilty. Good.

Eridan's earpiece crackled, and Kanaya's voice began to instruct him on the directions they would be needing to reach the presidents hideout. In response he would tap out a returning message by either rapping a nail onto the plastic or dragging it along the surface to create a longer noise, probably Morse code. Their communication made no sense to the other two trolls due to abbreviations, but Eridan was clearly the expert, so they made no comment, though talking was impossible anyway.

The earpiece on question seemed to be surgically implanted, perhaps to ensure that there was no way it would fall off while swimming.

Once their eyes had properly adapted to the meagre light conditions, the landdwellers noticed a number of blue luminescent freckles scattered across the seadweller's skin, that brought to mind a firefly squid. The freckles were faint, but undeniably there, and Terezi supposed that Feferi must have them too. Had they been on land, she would have asked Eridan on the matter, and had he been too grumpy to respond, commented on how she would have asked Sollux instead had he not gone renegade. Perfect. God, these boys were easy to wind up.

They swam for perhaps half an hour, before a shape was seen in the distance. Something vast and tall rising from the sea floor then up through the surface to create what seemed to be… a shining series of towers, perhaps? It was hard to tell when the three were so far down underwater.

Eridan suddenly stopped swimming, causing his hair to swish forward in front of his eyes and for perhaps the tenth time, he cursed himself for forgetting to pin it back. More instructions were being fed into his ear, but even his eyes could not see where Kanaya was telling him to go, which was not a problem for him, but for his team mates wearing air tanks, there was only so long they could wait.

'_Uw air now_,' he signalled to the troll on the other side of the connection, then began to swim once more to the side of the vast submerged building with the landdwellers in tow.

"Natural caves are present on the sea floor, but it may be too far down for Libra and Cancer. Along the building side there may be a few air pockets, as pieces were brought in from above when it was constructed. Use sonar," Kanaya replied over the earpiece, sounding somewhat annoyed. Sonar, of course. The violet-blood had completely forgotten that use of the machine he possessed, mostly because he had no need of finding air pockets on his missions.

Upon swimming closer to the building, the sonar feed on his diving mask began to display a vague idea of the layout, as well as a number of areas that could contain air. The images were sent to Kanaya and the team on the surface, who then interpreted them.

"Swim up 14m, then another 37 metres to the right, there should be a large air pocket, sheltered from view," The air pocket in question was found relatively easily thanks to the sonar, and contained a good amount of air.

As soon as the three surfaced and the mouthpieces were removed, Karkat spat, "Terezi, what the actual fuck!"

"Well it's not my fault you weren't ready!"

"Well it's not _my_ fault I got pushed out of a fucking plane without warning!" he retorted while switching the torch on his goggles on.

Eridan cleared his throat. "I'we got to go look for the entrance, so uhh, I'll leawe you twwo to it." He then dove down out of sight before anyone could say otherwise.

Looking back up from the disturbed water, Karkat returned his gaze to Terezi, and noticed how she looked more sombre than usual. Curse this crush thing.

After perhaps twenty minutes of awkward silence he asked, "You alright?"

The tea-blood pursed her lips, then said, "I can't see very well in the water. It makes me uncomfortable,"

"Fuck, sorry. I mean, none of us can really see in this kind of cloudy water outside fishdick, but yeah, sorry,"

"It's not your fault, it's just annoying. I can see enough to be able to follow you guys but that's it, even up here because of this stupid mask… though I'm kinda glad for that, because this air tastes disgustingly stale,"

"What if you took the mask off?"

"And get saltwater in my eyes? Karkat, just because I can't see out of them doesn't mean they won't hurt if I don't wear goggles! Besides, I can't smell in water so it's just pointless no matter how you look at it,"

**== Hold her hand!**

You attempt to reach out to hold the girl's hand but it is as if a force field is stopping you.

**== Do it! Try harder!**

A second attempt is made as you attempt the take the young lady's hand and win her affections, but once more you are thwarted by nerves or a force field. Whichever.

**== Take her fucking hand you piece of shit!**

You take Terezi's hand. Wait, what, why did you do that, that was a fucking awful idea what the actual frick.

Terezi turned to Karkat with an amused expression.

"Karkat I can smell your cherry blush through this goddamn mask!"

Maybe it was not such a bad idea after all.

"Just, feel better okay? Soon it'll be okay, don't worry about it,"

"An inspirational speech from Mr Vantas himself! I'm honoured! Though I thought the inspirational speech was supposed to come from the group leader,"

"Fuck you, I'm the group leader and we both know it!"

"Judging by the ranking I think you'll find that I am!"

"Fuck you, bulgefondler,"

Terezi's hand was warm compared to the all consuming coldness of the ocean surrounding them, and he could feel her pulse softly beating against his skin, slow and steady. It was at a stark contrast to his, which was racing stupidly fast.

Both were at a loss of what to say, so they simply waited in silence for the violet-blood to return.

Splssh.

Twenty minutes later, a shock of orange and purple emerged from the water, followed shortly by Eridan's face, which looked angry. After quickly pushing the sopping wet hair from his eyes, he ordered, "Followw me, an' be quick. I go through the hatch first, followwed by Ter, then Kar. Got it?"

After a good fifteen minutes of swimming, Eridan relocated the entrance. On the opposite side of the immense structure was a small service hatch that had been forced open, and through the door – a long tunnel one metre wide and across.

They entered in the order instructed, then proceeded to follow the light the freckles on Eridan's hands and face gave off. No time for apprehension. Then they swam and swam for a long time, for so long that Karkat worried about running out of air, and Terezi grew sleepy and Eridan grew viciously hungry. Communications kept coming into his ear, and he continued to tap out the responses.

... - .- / -. . .- .-.

Eventually they came to a section where the pipes moved upwards and the water met air, then the three proceeded to climb up the absurdly slippery metal.

The scales on the suit's forearms shifted subtly, and Karkat found that he could grip onto the metal with ease if he pressed his arms down firmly. Almost like octopus suckers. The material on the whole suit also shifted in colour and seemed to try and blend in with the environment's colours and textures.

After another few minutes of crawling, they reached a more open and flat section of the tunnel, and though none were claustrophobic the open space brought strong feelings of relief to all.

"We can rest here," Terezi commented, though her tone was essentially an order. "Is everyone okay?"

"Tired an' hungry as fuck,"

"I hate to agree with the resident idiot, but same. Did the Condesce give us any supplies?"

"No, it would weigh us down I guess?"

Karkat leaned back against the wall and covered his eyes with a hand, "Well that's a great fucking idea. Ten out of ten,"

"If you don't mind eatin' raww fish, then I can get you somethin' to eat," Eridan offered after a few minutes of listening to the rumbling stomachs of his team mates. "An' regardless a' wwhether you don't, I'm gonna get some for me,"

"Oh yeah another great idea up in here. Splitting up while in the middle of enemy territory, fucking enlighten me on where you get these ideas! My fucking god man." Karkat asked. "Besides, can't you get all sorts of tapeworms and shit from raw fish? It's not exactly like it's going to be prepared by a fucking grade A sushi chef or whatever,"

"Yeah, don't you need to flash freeze it or something before it's safe? I don't want to get worms thanks. But by all means, don't let us hold you back!"

Eridan flushed angrily, "Okay, wwell fuck you guys. It wwas just an offer, an' anywway I wwas gonna catch a tuna wwhich have barely any parasites,"

"As if you could catch a fucking tuna, nooklicker,"

"Wwho's a mutant-blood to tell a high-blood wwhat he can or can't do?" Eridan snarled. "And first a' all I _could_ a' caught a tuna, I wwas just swwimin' sloww for you landdwwellers,"

"Unless you've got some hidden flippers you've kept on the low, fuckwit, then I really fucking doubt it,"

"Oh, an' howw wwould you knoww anythin' about my body?"

"Nothing, given I'm one of the few people here you haven't practically fucking _stripteased_ in front of to try and get laid,"

"Fuck you, I'we newer done that, and I don't hit on eweryone! I'm just lonely sometimes or… or wwhatewer, uh forget I said that,"

"I know you're lonely, goddamn it, who cares! Everybody knows, and nobody cares!" At this Eridan visibly cringed. "Anyway, why don't we just ask Vriska about the fins… oh wait we can't because even your own fucking kismesis didn't want anything to do with you!"

Terezi placed a hand on each of their faces and pushed the pair apart, "Gentlemen _please_, we can discuss who's been laid or not later, and it'll be a very boring conversation because we are in a secret facility for mutants, admitted at thirteen where there is no privacy at all, so we're all as sweet and virginal as the next. Now can we get on with our lives?"

The boys turned away from each other angrily, and then continued the journey, making Terezi very glad to be separating the pair. All this over some fish! Hopefully they would be able to steal something to eat when they were in.

At the end of the tunnel was another small door, which led out to disused looking corridor as far as they could tell through the small window.

"It'd sure be easier if we had Sollux on our team," Karkat commented to piss Eridan off as he worked on prying open the door.

"Yeah, lowwblooded freaks gotta stick together, right?" he muttered in response, muscles straining as he repeatedly jammed a strange device into any crevice on the door possible. Whatever it was, it seemed to be loosening the lock.

"Or the woman who taught his group. The maroon-blood mutant with curly horns. Apparently when they broke out she blasted the huge security door clean off it's fucking hinges and tore a bunch of guards apart to nothing more than atoms with just her mind. That would be a lot more fucking useful right now than a pouting shit stain with gills,"

The skin on the bridge of Eridan's nose crinkled into a snarl as an undeniable level of aggression went into opening the door… but he said nothing.

Klunk!

The door opened anticlimactically and the three prepared to climb out but before they could, Terezi barred the entrance.

"I'm not letting the pair of you out there until I'm confident that you aren't going to fuck up the mission by arguing," she hissed, sounding annoyed.

"An' howw the fuck are you wwantin' us to showw you that?"

"Eridan, apologise for being a bigoted hemospectrumist, and Karkat, apologise for being a nosy wind up merchant,"

"No, I'm sorry, but he literally fucking started it! He suddenly hates my fucking guts for this stupid mutation I was born with!" Karkat spat, jabbing his finger at the high-blood's chest.

"It's not my fault I didn't knoww wwhat you are!"

"It's not my fault either! You think I like being like this? As soon as I could walk I was kept inside and hidden from everyone else. Told to hide from other kids, that if I fell and cut myself I'd be fucking _killed_. Heard the shit people said whenever a mutant-blood was found and culled.

'And then I was kidnapped and moved here, and I was told that I didn't have to be fucking scared anymore. I actually got to talk to people and it's fucking great. And I'm not going to let you ruin all this because of some stupid highblood shit. So fuck you if you suddenly hate me because of something so stupid."

The other two trolls simply stared at him, clearly not expecting the outburst.

"Kar, I – "

"No, fuck you Eridan. I thought we were friends, but you've made your stance pretty fucking clear. You're a stone-cold piece of shit and I can't even stand to look at your pathetic face anymore,"

"Kar, I'm sorry can't wwe just talk about this?"

"You made you option pretty damn fucking clear,"

"Well I'm not going to lie, this isn't the result I was expecting," Terezi said, a half-hearted attempt to lighten the situation. "Look, just don't put your fall out before the mission, okay? I don't want to get the Condesce on my back for your mistakes,"

Karkat turned his head angrily away, whereas Eridan avoided her gaze.

"Jeez! Okay, can we just have an agreement from you two? You can talk it out when you get back, but until then just act as if you're acquaintances, got it?"

Terezi peered about the corridor before them, hopped out, then signalled to the other two that the coast was clear.

'_Which direction_?' Eridan asked Kanaya, to which she replied left.

As they jogged, the suits shifted colours and patterns to blend into the environment and break up their forms, though at the end of the day their obnoxious candy-corn horns still gave them away. Karkat was thankful, however, that his horns were small and easily concealed, unlike those of Terezi and Eridan, whose were both over a foot long.

A clinical feeling clung to the walls, which was not at all aided by the strong stench of antiseptics.

"Why are there so few rooms?" Karkat asked after passing only two doors before reaching the staircase.

"Big rooms?" Terezi suggested.

After climbing several flights of stairs (at least seven according to Karkat), Kanaya ordered them to stop, and Eridan began to prise open the hatch, pausing occasionally to wipe sweat off his brow.

Pop!

A wave of strong light rushed through the open door and into the eyes of Karkat and Eridan, dazzling them as they stumbled blindly through before shutting the door. Outside was a beautiful view of the open ocean, with turbulent water and a bright overcast sky as far as the eye could see, broken only by the distant form of a seabird.

Water crashed up at the sides of the structure that soaked the collection of refugees clustered about in boats below, but only the faintest of splashes reached the three at the top and did nothing to deter the two boys from admiring the view once their eyes had adapted. Terezi on the other hand had grown tired of it almost immediately, and reminded the pair that they were on a time sensitive mission with patrols about to catch them, in a harsh whisper.

After reaffirming with Kanaya that they were heading in the correct direction, the three crept along the narrow, exposed pathways that clung to the exterior of the artificial island like barnacles on a rock. The paths themselves confused the three, as while they seemed completely pointless for the inhabitants (there were far safer routes about the island on the inside), these had hand rails to prevent people falling into the ocean, as well as rubber and chicken wire on the floor itself to aid grip. Yet while undeniably well maintained, there was something about the paths that suggested they were not at all official.

Kanaya's instructions led them further up the path, and reminded them to keep an eye out for the 'angels', which the three decided was a cryptic reference to the guards they had. At the very least she reassured them that the angels were released on opposite days, and that the day they were breaking in on was not a day they were in service.

They finally reached a door, not unlike the other door that they entered through underwater.

"Does anyone else wwanna do this?" the seadweller asked but was met with a blank stare from Karkat.

"You have been a bit of a shit today, I think you kinda…" Terezi began to say, before her ears perked up and she swung her head to look to their left. Going by the alarm on her face, Eridan began working on the lock without any further complaint. After a few moments she threw her arms back to shield the pair, and whispered, "Hurry up!"

Eridan pursed his lips from the strain on his muscles before the door opened, and felt an unexpected shove upon his back as the boys fell on top of each other into the relative safety of the corridor.

"Run!" she ordered.

As soon as the teal-blood slammed the door shut behind her, Karkat leapt to the window, only to be met with the form of a strange creature drifting past, with a body tens of metres long made of what appeared to be white chiffon-like cloth, though the face had passed by the time he caught a glimpse. Regardless of the face however, something about it deeply unsettled the pair in a way they could not understand.

Wait…

Fuck! Terezi, where was she? In the rush Karkat had not fully understood how he had gotten inside. Had the monster outside grabbed her?

"Shit!" Karkat cried, reaching for the handle, only to be stopped by Eridan.

"She said run! Are you fuckin' deaf?"

At this Karkat whipped round to face him and snarled, "I'm not leaving her out there, you heartless bulgefondler!"

"Wwe hawen't got a choice! She barred the door…" All the colour then drained from Eridan's face, which was amplified by the light being blocked from the window. "A-an' for a fuckin' good reason," He grabbed Karkat's hand and tugged him into a sprint down the corridor. The door's small window was being obscured by a hellish mess of snout and enormous teeth.

A hasty conversation was sent back and forth to Kanaya, who informed him that the Condesce had decided they would be more efficient if they were not scared of the base's guard dogs, which was bullshit in Karkat's opinion.

Had it not been for Eridan knowing the directions, Karkat would let go of his hand but unfortunately had no choice. Eridan must have picked up on this reluctance, as he whispered, "I'm sorry, Karkat. I wwould hawe stopped her if I had knowwn,"

"Just shut the fuck up,"

"I knoww it's hard, but you're gonna hawe to focus,"

"The fuck do you know? You've never had to worry about anything,"

"A' course I hawe shit to wworry about,"

"You've never had anything to worry about other than yourself, you pompous twat,"

"Really, you wwant to do this noww?"

"Why not!"

"I wwas fuckin' stressin' about you drowwnin' earlier today, or did you forget that?"

"Being worried about failing the mission hardly counts," Karkat whispered back, while they rested for a minute. The connection to Kanaya had cut out, thus there was nothing they could do. A map really would have been useful…

"You think I only sawed you because of that?" Eridan laughed, exasperated at the mutant-blood before him. "I knoww I hawen't exactly been rollin' out the wwelcome wwagon but wwoww,"

"Why won't you just shut up already? Terezi is probably dead and your fucking pathetic attempt at emphasising with me is just rubbing it all in!"

"I'm not _attempting_ to emphasise, I _am_ emphasising,"

"As if you've ever fucking experienced loss besides your shitty attempts at getting a partner,"

"Don't you fuckin' start that again," Eridan snarled before receiving signal from Kanaya once more, and motioning which way to go. "Besides, eweryone and their mother knowws you're obsessed wwith Ter, and wwhere has that gotten you? She's certainly takin' pity on you, but not the right kind!"

"What, like Feferi and Vriska?" At this, Eridan visibly cringed as if he had been hit. "What?"

"It's nothin', just keep mowin',"

Before long they ended up outside again, with Karkat for once being very pleased about Eridan's trigger happy attitude. Every noise seemed to be one of the monsters approaching, prompting the most silent creeping they had ever attempted.

Suddenly Karkat could hear a slight crinkling noise on the breeze, the same noise he had previously heard before the arrival of the angel, and had dismissed as their clothing. Of course now he remembered that their clothing did not rustle.

He tapped on Eridan's shoulder and indicated behind them, and surely enough in the distance was a white haze approaching.

In less than a second, Eridan had pulled the gun from his shoulder and sent a blast from the Ahab's Crosshairs towards the angel. With a soft sigh, the creature disintegrated.

They clambered back inside through an open window, gasping for a few seconds at the relief of being safe, before turning and realising what room they were in.

"This is where we're supposed to be, right?" whispered Karkat.

"I don't know, Kar, something seems fishy about this,"

The mutant-blood snorted, "Everything is fishy to you, you're a fucking fish,"

Filing cabinets occupied most of the space, with a computer in the centre of the room (they ignored this, as neither knew the first thing about getting into computers, despite what Karkat might have said). The scenario reminded Eridan of a mission Vriska told him about, and hopefully their mission would go as well as theirs, but for added security they had both made sure to activate the mask function of the suit.

First step was… oh.

"Eridan, what are we actually doing here?"

Frowning, Eridan turned, "Oh yeah, I forgot. The Condesce thinks one of… us is feedin' the enemies information, so wwe're here to find any ewidence,"

"Oh, sure. Couldn't we just hack into their servers though?"

"Wwell no, or wwe wwould hawe," the seadweller replied. "Kar, somethin' seriously doesn't feel right,"

On the desk was an almost strategically placed manila folder.

'_Get out of there_!' Kanaya whispered urgently.

Fuck it. Eridan barrelled towards Karkat, grabbed him round the waist and began to make a dash for the exit when an angel appeared, blocking the window but making no attempt to enter the room.

The pair turned to the other windows, but found that they too were guarded. An attempt at the door was made but it would not budge, and Terezi had used Eridan's door hack to seal the angel outside, ironically enough.

"Shit," Karkat hissed while Eridan bit back an 'I told you so'.

Suddenly the angels swooped in, circling the pair until they were back to back in the centre of the room.

Clack!

The door swung open and in rushed a torrent of soldiers, who searched then bound the mutants until they could do no more than wiggle a little from side to side in an attempt to get up from the chairs they had been tied to. Once the pair were bound, the angels left the room, and soon after, following behind the soldiers was none other than the president of the United States.

"I'm surprised, I didn't think it would be this easy to capture you!" he smiled. "Two more of seahitler's little soldiers to add to the collection. At least you're not those insectoid ones again. At least I don't think so, can't tell with those masks. I've actually met some of your kind before, believe it or not. I had a trio of you break into my dinner party,"

"The fuck is this? Scooby Doo?" Karkat snarled. "Cut to the chase already,"

With a cold stare, the president walked up to Karkat and jabbed a pair of fingers just under the mutant's chin, forcing the scales that covered him to move back into their dormant position, exposing his angry, flushed face.

"Oh, a maroon-blood. Well I'm not going to lie, I assumed that bitch thought a little bit more of my defences than to send in such a tiny rust blood, but I guess – "

"You shut the fuck up," Eridan interrupted angrily.

"I was getting to you, calm down," the man sighed, and jabbed at the suit again, then paused with a gobsmacked grin. "Eridan Ampora! Is this for real?"

"Wwhat's it to you?"

"Fuck!" the man burst into laughter, then poked his head into the corridor. "Hey! Suenne, look at this!"

"Oh my god! It's that kid! What's-his-name, the one every prepubescent girl had a crush on," the woman presumably called Suenne gasped, before joining the president in laughter.

"Look at you! No wonder you fell off the radar, you became a fucking freak! Oh god, I can't even believe this. You know, you know my little girl used to have pictures of you all over her bedroom. Even had a pair of underwear with you on, you should really have spoken to your marketing team about that,"

"Can I touch it?" one of the crowd who had clustered behind the president asked, referring to Eridan's skin, then poked his cheek anyway. "That's so gross!"

"Can I have a picture with it?" another asked.

From the corner of his eye, Karkat noticed Eridan's face flushing purple from shame as his head hung forward. He was the picture of humiliation, and had this been any other situation, Karkat would probably have left him to suffer, but fuck he looked so pitiful.

"Lay off him, you tribe of nooksuckers. He's a human being, not a fucking museum exhibit," he snapped.

"There's no use shouting stupid remarks, kid. Your kind flooded this planet, this is the last of your worries compared to what you'll be experiencing later,"

"You don't have to make it personal,"

"Personal? You killed millions! That's pretty fucking personal if you ask me," one of the crowd snarled, and darted forwards, punching Karkat straight in the nose, before being held back by the soldiers. "My family are dead because of you, you sons of bitches!"

Crimson blood began to slowly drip down Karkat's upper lip, and the only thought in his mind was 'not again'. The crowd recoiled in disgust and fear at the sight of his blood, while Karkat attempted to wipe it from his face onto the fabric of his shoulder.

Upon hearing a soft sigh from his right, Karkat turned to see Eridan giving him a sympathetic look, and though he would have normally looked away, he could not help but hold eye contact with the one person in the room not jeering at him. How ironic that it would be Eridan this time.

"Get them to the cells, we've got stuff to learn, and I've got to be back for tea with my husband and kids before seven," the president ordered, and with that the pair were hauled into the air, leading a menacing conga-line back down into the heart of the tower.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Basically, imagine if a super freaky spy broke into the Whitehouse or whatever, and it was like zefron or harry styles, that's why they're all so amused u

And sorry for the delay, uni is as busy as ever! D: I've been writing almost non-stop when not working though :) also all the dialogue! This is reaaaally dialogue heavy, I just love writing Eridan :s

Also I plan to draw a new cover for this story, so if anyone has any favourite scenes they'd like illustrated for it, let me know! Also if you'd like more romance or action or whatever going on in the story uvu

Anyway, thanks for reading! 38)


	29. Baby Birds, Bath Bombs and Bonding

Small amounts of blue light filtered in through the window, a soothing awakening for Eridan. To his left was a large round window with a silhouette seated before it, and to his right, a hefty looking door. It took him another few seconds to realise that he was lying on the floor, and another ten for the pain to kick in.

"Aaahhhh," he hissed under his breath, reaching a tentative hand to his ear.

"You finally woke up, I was about to kick you," the silhouette rumbled.

"Kar?" Eridan asked. The figure turned to face Eridan, and it was indeed the mutant-blood. "Kar, wwhat did they do to my ear?"

"Probably took the communication device out," he shrugged. "I didn't want to get my hands dirty by fucking about in your ear though, or what you seadwellers call ears."

Sitting up, Eridan noticed the wadded up blanket beneath his head and allowed himself a small smile.

"Thanks,"

"Don't mention it. Literally. Tell anyone and I swear to fucking God I will rip out your intestines and use them to dangle you before the sharks there doubtless are here,"

"Jeez, calm dowwn. Wway to take a nice comment,"

The pair had been stripped of the fancy scale suits, which had been replaced by a warm jumpsuit and slip on shoes, not unlike those worn at the retainment organisation. Though a quick wiggle confirmed to Eridan that he had only underwear beneath.

Despite the thick cloth of the jumpsuit, he still found himself shivering a little, in stark contrast to the pulsating heat from his ear. Truth be told, he was rather glad to have the communication device out of his ear: it tracked his location and picked up anything he said, no matter how softly it was said. Quite the invasion of privacy.

Upon noticing Karkat shaking, Eridan decided the lowblood could do with the blanket more than him, draped it round his shoulders and took a seat on the ground opposite, joining him in staring out of the window. The other mutant gave him a half hearted glare, but accepted the gift.

The light that reached the depth they were at was meagre, but enough to just about pick up the barnacles and anemones beginning to take root on the glass. Occasionally small fish would come to pick at the glass, but other than that very little life came to visit, which was surprising given how they were on the seafloor.

"Wwonder wwhy this prison has such big wwindowws,"

"Because if you were stupid enough to break the window, you'd just drown,"

"You wwould? Oh yeah, keep forgettin' you guys dont hawe gills," Eridan said, which Karkat responded to with an eye roll and a loud annoyed sigh.

"Yeah, normal people can't swim upwards for twenty fucking minutes without being dead, nooksucker,"

Eridan chuckled to himself, then sat and stared out the window for a while longer. After ten minutes, he turned, confused at how unusually quiet his companion was being, and asked, "Hey, wwhat's got your attention out there?"

At this, Karkat visibly tensed up.

"Mind your own fucking business,"

Oh. So he was definitely looking at something then. Eridan scrunched up his eyes and scanned the area for the offending object, then found exactly what he was looking for once he got up and casually walked over to Karkat's side of the room.

"Kar, I... it's probably not hers, okay?"

On the sea floor about ten metres away was a solitary diving mask.

"Whose else's is it gonna fucking be?" Karkat roared, turning to face Eridan. "She could barely see even with it on in the water, so without it I..."

"Kar," Eridan put a hand on the smaller trolls shoulder. "This is Terezi wwe're talkin' about. If anyone could get back to safety after fallin' blindly into the ocean, it's her,"

Karkat said nothing, which was not necessarily a bad thing.

"Don't wworry, it'll be okay. Just try not to think about it too much,"

"Fucking quality advice, thank you," Karkat shot back. "Just shut the fuck up already, you have no idea what I'm going through,"

At this, something in Eridan snapped.

"I knoww exactly wwhat you're goin' through if not wworse!" the seadweller snarled. "Wwhy the fuck do you think I got put wwith a pair of landdwwellers instead a' Fef for a fuckin' underwwater mission? They took Fef wwhen my leg got busted, an' wwe hawe no idea wwhere she is, or wwho has her. The last thin' I heard from her wwas her screamin' into the mic. So... so..." Eridan turned away.

"Oh,"

"At least there's a good chance that Terezi is aliwe and free,"

"Fuck, man, I'm sorry,"

"It's okay, you didn't knoww. An' I wwas bein' a dick to you,"

They were quiet for a bit, then Karkat said, "Feferi could easily rip apart a person in half her bare hands, I'm sure she's fine." Eridan nodded. "In fact, she's probably coming to rescue our sorry asses right now,"

"Kar, sorry about all the shit I said. I didn't really mean it. I'm stressed as fuck right noww, and, wwell I used to wwanna kill all landdwwellers but, you're actually not so bad,"

"Pff, thanks, well while we're aboard the sad sap's apology train, sorry for making you ask out Feferi, I fucked up your relationship big time,"

"Don't wworry about it. It gawe me some closure. I'd been crushin' on her and doin' nothin' about it for ower a decade, it wwas about time," Eridan replied with a smile.

"Hitting on Sollux was pretty weak though, not going to lie. Like of all the fucking bulgemunchers to rebound on!"

"Kar, you a' all people should recognise someone tryin' to pull someone into an auspitse role! I thought I could get Fef back into a quadrant wwith me, ewen if it wwas jus' that I'd be happy. I jus' miss her. I mean, I hate Sol's guts sure, but in a pure and platonic wway... if that's ewen a thin'..."

At that, something inside Karkat relaxed for some reason.

"Look at us, feelin' jammin' like old times. Fuck, I hope ewerythin's back to normal wwith us,"

Karkat pouted, "You're not off the hook that easily, Ampora. But yeah, we're okay,"

"Wwhat about you and Ter anywway? Don't think I didn't catch you twwo holdin' hands," Eridan teased, though his heart did not seem to be into it.

"I don't know... What you said about her pitying me but in the wrong way is true, I think. I just... I think its a similar thing to you and Fef. Can't fault her but..."

"I wwas just lashin' out, don't read too much into wwhat I said,"

"It's true though, I just can't believe it took me this fucking long to accept it. I mean, no I don't really want to be yapping on about a nonexistent relationship with someone who could be dead,"

"Fair enough,"

"Anyway, are you sure you haven't moved on since Feferi? And I mean properly, not just halfheartedly asking everyone out because you're 'lonely' or whatever,"

"Wwhat? Wwhy?" Eridan replied apprehensively.

"Because it seemed like you have? I think I know you well enough to be able to tell!"

"Uh, Kar, okay that is none a' your business,"

"Why? It's usually my business,"

"I just really don't wwanna talk about it right noww,"

"So you have moved on then?"

"Fuck,"

Karkat, upon realising that this was an uncomfortable topic for him, went for the jugular. After all, Eridan had been a hemospectrumist bigot to him all day, so he kind of deserved it.

"Come on, I've spilled my secrets. Literally,"

"Wwell blood colour types is sort a' different,"

A similar such conversation went back and forth for a good half hour, with Karkat attempting to wear Eridan down into submission, and Eridan slowly getting more and more fed up by the mutant-blood's seemingly endless pool of energy.

"Kar, stop it,

"No, man, tell me. We haven't gossiped in fucking forever, I won't judge you,"

"Ahaha, yeah I think you wwill," he laughed sarcastically.

"Why, is it the Condesce?"

"Eww, ewen I hawe limits,"

"Is it Kanaya?" Karkat asked, nose wrinkling in disgust at the very idea of them dating. "No, fuck it, if it's Kanaya I don't want to know,"

"It's not Kanaya, she's practically my mom, that wwould be gross. Just stop already, you're not gonna like it. Drop it,"

"You know full fucking well that just makes me wanna know more," Karkat snorted. "Come on dude, you know I'm not gonna drop it until you say, so you may as well spill. It's not like we've got anything else going on while we sit in this damp prison cell,"

"No,"

"Tell me,"

"No, leawe me alone already,"

"I'll stop bugging you I promise," Karkat smirked. "As soon as you tell me,"

"I've lasted like an hour, I can last another few," Eridan sighed, though he was getting weak and the need to get it off his chest was strong, and was only intensified around his number one gossip buddy.

"Please, there you go the magic word. That enough for you, your highness?"

"Kar, stop,"

"Who is it?" Karkat nagged a final time, and the barriers that kept Eridan thinking clearly broke, and before Karkat had fully registered what was going on he noticed he someone was kissing him. That someone was Eridan, whose eyes quickly widened with fear as he scrambled back to the relative safety of the back corner of the room.

"Fuck, Kar, I'm sorry I didn't mean to, I..." Eridan stammered in a panic. "Fuck, fuck, fuck,"

Karkat, in a daze, said nothing.

"I'm sorry, I fucked up, shit,"

Still no response.

"Wwell say somethin', please! Actually no, don't say anythin'... I mean, fuck," The violet-blood tugged at his hair nervously, refusing to so much as lift his head and meet Karkats confused gaze.

"Well, uh, I can see why you didn't want to say,"

"Kar, I'm sorry, it just happened, I didn't mean to,"

"Just shut up for a minute, Ampora," Karkat said, and Eridan indeed did.

This was an interesting development. In all honesty, Karkat had never thought for a minute that Eridan would be attracted to him; for a start, he was a lowly mutant-blood and Eridan a Prince. There was simply no chance of anything working, not in the least because Eridan could live for centuries and Karkat would likely be culled in a few years if he was _lucky, _and that was if he was not killed by the people at the base first.

In fact, Karkat had never even considered the idea that he could be into other men, let alone Eridan: he had not really been interested in romance beyond books before he was taken into the retainment society, and as soon as he had begun noticing other people, he only had eyes for Terezi. Sure he could identify who the attractive ones of the group were, but he by no means experienced attraction to anyone but the teal-blood.

But now that he thought about it, he and Eridan had always got along incredibly well, they rarely fought, shared many of the same interests, and Karkat had never found Eridan as annoying as everyone else seemed to. And hell, Eridan was unreasonably attractive, there were no two ways about that fact.

Karkat looked over to Eridan's sullen form and his chest felt funny.

'_I could certainly do worse,_" he told himself.

Plus, if they somehow made it out alive from this mess and everything went back to normal, having the protection of a violet-blooded boyfriend certainly would not hurt. The president of the US for example was only an indigo-blood... then again they _were_ mutants, so blood status did not count for shit.

And what about Terezi? Karkat had been essentially in love with her for two years now! Though he was pretty certain she and Gamzee had a blossoming kismesis going on... and she was probably dead.

Oh...

Fuck it, if they were going to rot in a cell he may as get something good out of the mess.

Karkat slowly stood up and padded over to where Eridan sat and plonked himself down beside him. As soon as his mind caught up with what he was about to do, his body started shaking with uncontrollable nerves.

At the sound of Karkat sitting, Eridan looked up and found the the other mutant looming very close to him.

"I'm sorry, Kar, please don't be mad,"

And this time to Eridan's surprise, it was Karkat who scrunched his eyes shut, grabbed the violet-blood's chin and planted a kiss on his lips... or attempted to anyway. The nerves resulted in Karkat missing, and leaving a kiss on his cheek instead.

They both stared at each other owlishly for a few seconds, then burst out into laughter, before Karkat plucked up the courage once more and leant in, this time managing to kiss Eridan on the lips.

It was a new experience for them both: Karkat because that had been his first kiss, and Eridan because he was only used to the somewhat painful hate-smooches. The somewhat more experienced violet-blood made sure to keep the kiss slow and soft so as to not startle Karkat, and rubbed small circles into the base of the mutant-blood's back with his thumbs to try and calm Karkat out of his nervous trembling. After a few seconds of this, the mutant-blood shifted, placing his hands on Eridan's waist and pressed him ever so slightly up against the wall, prompting a soft moan to fall from the violet-blood's lips.

At this Karkat stopped completely still, the fog over his mind clearing as he realised what he was doing, and the implications of it.

Well damn.

The boy beneath him looked up with heavy-lidded eyes and an intense purple flush showing through the grey on his face. His expression spoke volumes, of being putty beneath Karkat's hands (hell it was clear that he would do virtually anything his partner would say to keep them in a relationship with him), of the emotions rushing through his system (affection, longing and definitely a sliver of fear) and at the same time how he was also somewhat certain that the mutant-blood was about to run off somewhere.

This was Eridan. Eridan who's only relationship had been dysfunctional, and all others had turned him down in a variety of over-the-top and occasionally down right cruel ways (though admittedly they were mostly justified). His confidence, although he strutted about like a peacock, was just short of abysmally low, and the last thing he needed was someone who was his best friend deciding to play the happy couple with him before running off with someone else, not to mention... oh...

Karkat's ability to think clear left once more as Eridan began to press light kisses down his jaw, before nuzzling his face into the mutant-blood's neck.

"Kar, I-"

Suddenly, rapidly approaching footsteps, and the pair leapt apart to opposite sides of the room, or rather Karkat did, for Eridan was too flustered and content to stand properly.

"Fuck, they can't find us like this! What in the shitblisteringly ever loving fuck was I thinking doing that here, they'll separate us!" Karkat muttered frantically, yet Eridan said nothing, seemingly on a completely different plane of existence.

With a soft sigh, the door slid into the wall, and a guard appeared.

"You're to be questioned now," she said. "My team and I are going to tie you up and carry you, blindfolded, to the location,"

The pair glanced at each other, but said nothing; compliance was the best option at this point.

* * *

><p><strong>== Whoa okay, um, well be Vriska I guess? <strong>

You are now Vriska Serket, and you have been walking through the dark for an hour.

Walking beside the train tracks was oddly peaceful, and Vriska wondered whether it was simply a part of growing older that she found herself enjoying it. The sunset had been gorgeous, and watching the golden orb slide slowly down beneath the path before her brought a simple contentment to her body. Soon the stars claimed their place in the endless blue overhead, and the moon began it's travelling for the night.

Watching the astral movements reminded her of a quote from a book her grandmother had given her, a book she now knew to be a gift from the Summoner to Mindfang. While the exact phrasing eluded her, it spoke of a little prince who watched several sunsets in a row, and later commented on how one loves sunsets when one is sad. Vriska decided that could well be true.

Living in a run down urban area had denied Vriska such simple pleasures as watching the stars or sunsets, and she found herself oddly thankful for the chance to experience them.

Now bathed in the light of a full moon, the path before her was almost as clear as daylight, though the air carried a strong chill to it, resulting in both sweaters being knotted securely about her shaking frame.

The route she was taking had travelled roughly at sea level for a while before travelling up into the mountains, with an area of flat land extending a few metres to either side of the track. On one side the mountain began, full of natural caves and shelter if one could manage the hike, and on the other side, a steep drop travelling down and down until it reached the ocean, with only a small row of hardy trees between the track and the edge.

Alongside the path she could hear crickets chirping merrily, a silly thing that comforted her an unreasonable amount due to her solitude. Though despite this she carried her fluorite octet firmly in her hand, unclenching them only when stopping for water.

Vriska had decided to march through the night then camp in the daytime as it was safest. While she could disguise herself as a human, it required a fair amount of energy: energy that would be better spent on the journey ahead.

A number of people passed Vriska on the path, but she chose to hide for the most part. A few spotted her, and quickly found themselves marching off down the tracks with an odd case of brief amnesia.

Thinking about the way the planet once was was strange. Vriska imagined trains hurtling past her across the tracks, and wondered what she would be doing now if she had not become mutated. She decided she would likely have saved up enough money from the siphoning to escape, perhaps with her sister, but aside from that she had not a clue. What was she good at? Maybe scamming people, especially with her powers... but that was not a career.

Sailing had always been a blast, possibly because she wanted to be a pirate so much when she was a kid... and also now... Well, sailing was a start. Maybe one day when the mess was over she could rent a boat and travel for a while: the world was mostly water now after all, or even more so anyway.

Tavros... definitely someone who would help people or conservation, she could definitely imagine him out in a rainforest up to his waist in mud to aid a small bird. There was a certain quality to him where he would gladly make sacrifices to aid others for no gain; something Vriska almost completely lacked, and though it was certainly not something she would do, she found that quality in him somewhat... endearing?

'_Fuck, I'm going soft_,' she decided, and remembered a song from a film she loved as a kid.

"If there's a prize for rotten judgement, I guess I already won that..." she sang absentmindedly.

Singing raised her spirits tenfold, and she wiggled and danced her way down the tracks for a while, somewhat embarrassed at her inability to hit the right notes until she remembered no one could hear her.

In fact, she was so distracted at belting out how she was the dancing queen (young and sweet, only seventeen) that she failed to notice the faint rustling coming from ahead.

Out of the bushes leapt one of the strange mutated fauna that roamed about the area. It was a large mountain lion, with short silky fur and several painful looking spikes protruding through its fur, presumably through mutation. Blood was oozing through the infected crust surrounding the base and the stench nearly made Vriska vomit.

With barely a moment to spare, Vriska cast her dice and thanked her lucky stars that the attack which materialised was a series of flintlock pistols suspended in midair until she needed them.

Driven mad from pain and potentially hunger, the lion showed no fear at this display, and instead continued to charge forward, getting increasingly frustrated by Vriska's quick sidestepping. Were she not carrying all of the weight on her back, she could easily have dealt with the creature by now, but as it were, Vriska was slower than usual, and this drew the attack on longer and longer until she cast off the bag behind her into the bushes.

Grabbing a pistol, she span on her heel and faced the beast head on, though the sight of a furious mountain lion running towards her understandably startled the cerulean-blood, sending a bullet into its foot instead of its skull like she was aiming to.

The creature yowled in pain but continued its charge, and before Vriska could dodge it pounced on her claws sinking deep into the flesh on her shoulders. In the split second she had before the lion mangled her to death, she cast the dice once more and heard the sound of the guns clicking before bullets sprayed into the beast, with a number of shots grazing by her skin, her screams adding to that from the mutated animal.

Eventually, the grip the cat had on her lessened as it collapsed on top of her. With a groan she pushed it up off her, moaning and wincing at the vivid pulsating pain travelling through her body at the use of her shoulder muscles. After a long thirty seconds of shoving, the animal fell to the ground beside her and she curled into a ball, the only sound she could make, a long high-pitched gasp.

Vriska was not certain how long she lay there in agony, though as the sun began to peek over the ocean the pain had started to ebb back a bit, and thus she hobbled over to where her bag had been dropped and rummaged through it for the first aid kits, stripping her upper half down to a vest and placing the sleeve of her jumpsuit between her teeth before pouring iodine into the wounds.

The pain from the cleaning and bandaging processes caused her to hiss violently into the cloth, but there was no alternative. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she hoisted the rusksack back onto her shoulders, and after cutting the good meat from the creature, she kicked it repeatedly for a good minute before shoving its corpse over the ledge.

Though much weird and wonderful wildlife existed in Britain, there had never been anything much worse than the odd mutant fox to worry about when walking out in the countryside, thus Vriska had completely forgotten that in the rest of the world, things were very different. The lesson had been learnt, however, and Vriska merely hoped that the wounds would not get infected. Fatigue had long since set in, however, and so she hiked a short while away from the tracks until she found a small natural cave, and set up camp.

A fine dinner of mountain lion with cactus was enjoyed, and Vriska decided that she would not tell Tavros of the attack, for the gloating she would get as a result would be unbearable. Perhaps she should have heeded his warning about the dangerous fauna of the region, but she had assumed he was just being overly anxious for hers and Sollux's sakes. Evidently not.

Before settling down for the night she made her best effort to block the majority of the entrance with rocks to deter people and other predators, making sure to leave some gaps to allow air in, for while she knew fire used oxygen to burn, she could not remember if embers also required it, and suffocating would be a boring way to go.

But despite the relative warmth and comfort, she found herself unable to sleep due to the pain in her shoulders and the fear that another mountain lion would find her and attack while she slept.

The immense loneliness hit her again, and now she was alone she curled into a ball and sobbed openly. It was odd, Vriska thought that the years apart would make it easier yet she still missed her family, and god but she missed Sollux, the Handmaid and Tavros... especially Tavros, fuck did she miss him, and she did not even have Eridan this time to distract from that. Those gentle smiles, the unending well of patience and kindness towards everything, the warmth the bronze-blood radiated even on the rare occasions that he was mad just... just...

Vriska needed a hug, but there was no one around so she held herself as the sobs shook her body.

After several hours had passed, the cerulean-blood grew so exhausted that she unwillingly slipped into a deep sleep, one that she may not have woken up from had luck not been on her side.

**== Be Vriska when she wakes**

You are now Vriska Serket once more, and it is almost sunrise.

Vriska woke to the sky growing lighter, and realised she must have slept almost twenty hours. The pain in her shoulders was pulsing and writhing, so intensely even that she almost didn't recognise that she had only woken due to someone tapping her on the shoulder.

She squinted at the space before her, unable to make much out until she quickly fumbled about to find her glasses and saw none other than... a rock that had fallen overnight and knocked her awake... oh.

Well that was useless. Vriska cleared away the camping supplies before pulling the rucksack back on and continuing her journey. While walking she ate the leftovers from the mountain lion, deciding that they were not likely to emerge in the daytime, though made sure to keep herself hidden, even more so than previously, as due to the wounds, Vriska was not in the best mental state and she was well aware of it.

While she had a good supply of medical equipment, it was less than ideal to use it all on the one wound, and so she decided to keep an eye out for similar refugees hiding in the caves so she could steal their first aid kits.

For lunch, she ate more cold meat from the lion joint she had cooked the day before, joined by a rather bruised peach that was none the less delicious. After a day of trekking, she was already almost out of water and she found herself worrying about how she would survive when the heat was only increasing and the wind dropped and the clouds were chased off by the sun.

By midday Vriska could barely walk straight, having drunk a good deal of the water with the sun at it's highest point of the day. She was immensely dehydrated, and decided the best course of action would be to find the people hiding in caves and steal their supplies.

While keeping an eye out for smoke from possible camps, Vriska decided it was a damn shame that she could not see through walls with her spider eye. Suddenly, Vriska's gaze caught a rising pillar of smoke coming from one of the caves, a cave which had been blocked in by a wall of rocks, similar to Vriska's, though many had been torn away.

She deftly scaled the mountainous terrain, forgetting how weak her muscles were in the excitement, before ripping the stones obscuring the cave away and promptly gagging. All that was left of the previous inhabitant was a pool of blood and some rotten meat, and Vriska deduced that the mountain lions had possibly attacked more people than just her. A few tufts of fur caught on the rocks about the entrance added to her theory, and assumed that the poor soul had been dragged off.

To her luck though, there were a number of supplies left behind, including a six-pack of water bottles, and upon rummaging about in their rucksack, a small but full first aid kit.

While chewing on some dried meat she had found, Vriska slowly peeled back the soiled bandages from her shoulders, (recalling the hours she had spent changing Tavros's from their time in the village) and massaged the nanobot-aided antibiotic cream into her wounds. Although the gouges in her shoulders were no where near healed, the local anaesthetic kicked in and she found herself feeling blissfully well, helped by the nanobots that rapidly set to work, working alongside the permanent ones in her body.

Due to the mountain lion wound, her calves had been amazingly stiff as the nanobots focussed their energies elsewhere, though not as bad as they usually were... perhaps they were finally almost done healing. Regardless, she was feeling better, and as such began to walk further, keeping an eye out for anymore caves.

**== Skip to something interesting!**

You are now Vriska Serket several days later, still travelling through the mountains.

It was at this point that Vriska saw another subtle smoke trail coiling up into the sky, and this time scaled the walls as softly as possible to avoid alerting a potential attacker of her presence.

Above her was another cave opening, this time unblocked with a much larger entrance. Perhaps they had only just gotten set up?

A hefty climb later, the cerulean-blood had grabbed onto the ledge, panting slightly and ready to pull herself up. Unfortunately for her, a sharp stick was suddenly thrust out of the entrance to the cave, almost making her lose her balance before a hand reached out and pulled her in.

To her disbelief a familiar face greeted her.

"Sollux?" she hissed. "The fuck are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here? What are _you_ doing here?" he shot back, before the relief at seeing a friendly face got to them, and the pair hugged each other tightly.

"Don't tell a word of this to anyone," Vriska mumbled into his shoulder.

"Agreed,"

For a few minutes they clung to each other, both so relieved to not be going the journey alone, and glad to see a somewhat friendly face.

Sollux looked much the same as he did a few days ago, yet his features looked far more haggard and there was a hunger in his gaze that clearly told her he had not eaten in days.

The mutants sat around the remnants of the fire and chewed on some jerky Vriska scavenged, before explaining the situation.

"I went to go check on HM and Tavroth a bit after you thet off again, which ith when I found the guardth. I found the clue Tavroth had left and I athumed you'd left it for me to thee where you'd gone, tho I left it and thet off,"

"With no food or water?" Vriska snorted. "You'd have made it far,"

"I did alright," he shrugged. "I was overheated, I had a migraine and thit had just gone down, tho I panicked, bite me,"

"With pleasure," she drawled. "No but seriously, that was a stupid move,"

"You don't have to rub it in, athhole,"

With Sollux now joining her, Vriska felt a dozen times more confident about the journey ahead, and pulled the smaller bag out from inside the rucksack, filled it with a share of supplies, then gave it to Sollux, careful to hide the fact that she had kept Tinkerbull. The pack was deliciously lighter now.

"So what's the plan?" she asked. "I'm assuming youve been hiding in the day and travelling at night?"

"Yeah, though there are tho many feral animalth, ethpecially mountain lionth, it'th inthane,"

"Tell me about it," Vriska grumbled, "I take it you're just fine though?"

"Yeah, you don't lothe tho much water at night, it'th not that bad,"

Sollux napped a while longer while Vriska sat guard and munched on grilled cactus. She wished she could say she hated them, but they were honestly delicious and full of liquid, the ideal food. Though it would not surprise her in the least if she discovered that the cacti were actually poisonous and they had messed up their insides by eating them so compulsively. Still, better than starving.

When night finally fell, the pair continued their journey, and the walking was substantially easier with a shared load and company. Vriska gave the second sweater to Sollux, who accepted it somewhat gratefully (he decided that though he was confident enough in his masculinity to wear a girls top, he would have preferred something more manly; Vriska asked if he would have preferred a top of a beefy, well armed guy riding a tiger before an explosion, which resulted in a smirk).

The ocean looked beautiful with the moon reflecting off it's surface, and they were so far up in the mountains that the light pollution was minimal, resulting in an arm of the Milky Way stretching above them, with a smattering of stars. For most of the journey they did not speak, instead choosing to walk arm in arm (for warmth they would assert firmly when asked later) and let the cricket song fill the air as they ate the last of the peaches Vriska had bought. Occasionally they would see ghost like owls fly past, accompanied by the shrill squeak of its prey.

At around three in the morning, the pair came across a train station, one which appeared to be severely run down even before all the mess that happened. After checking to see that the building was abandoned, they had a break to check the map on the wall and found to their delight a shortcut over the mountains rather than their path that took them somewhat around the middle section.

Before setting off, the pair broke into the locked rooms, thanks to Sollux's optic blasts, in an attempt to find anything interesting. Small amounts of money had been stashed in a safe, which Vriska insisted upon taking 'just in case', as well as some ID cards and a staff water cooler. They were in luck; other travellers had been unable to break into the room due to the lack of tools available, but it had not been an issue for the two, and as such they each took a large water bottle, with Sollux shoving a few handfuls of instant coffee sachets in his pockets.

As daytime was approaching, they decided instead to climb up into attic area of the staff room after welding the main door shut, and found it to be comfy room to both of their surprise. With the blow up mattress, the pair slept like kings, their backs tentatively touching for warmth.

Sometime during the afternoon they were softly woken by the sound of voices, before the loud crash of someone trying to kick the door down filled the small room. The pair jolted upright.

"Will the door hold?" Vriska whispered.

"Probably," Sollux replied. "Can't you look through the floor at them?"

"I don't know, I'll try," But despite a minute of frantic staring and squinting at the floor, nothing of use happened. Vriska gave a somewhat nervous laugh, "If they get inside, I'll have to stare down from the ceiling and tell them to fuck off or whatever,"

"It thouldn't come to that though,"

The people in the corridor stuck about for the best part of a day, before eventually growing tired of their attempts to knock the door down, and left. To be certain, the pair waited up in the loft for another day, before climbing back down into the sealed room below. Once the thud of their feet hitting the ground echoed about the room, they could hear voices outside once more, and wished that the room or loft had windows they could escape from.

"We're thcrewed,"

The thick metal door had a series of strange protrusions on it that spoke of the hammer they had been using.

"Depending upon how many of them we are, I could sneak us out. If I can make my horns invisible then why not the rest of me?"

"In cathe you haven't noticed, I can't do that,"

"I know, you hide up there for a little bit longer, I'll draw them away then you go hide outside, it'll work great,"

Sollux mulled the plan over in his head before turning to the back wall and sliding his glasses up. His optic blasts began to cut a hole through the wall until a square just big enough for a human to fit through was cut, which he caught and softly lowered to the ground so no noise was made.

Shrugging, Vriska joined Sollux in ducking through the hole before full out sprinting away from the station. It seemed to their relief that the intruders had not realised the mutants had left the room, so they gained a strong head start.

"Fuck," Sollux wheezed after a few minutes. "Vrithka, thtop, they won't catch uth up,"

"I just want to be certain," she pouted, though slowed down into a light jog for the gold-blood's benefit.

Neither were in the condition to run anymore anyway. They slowed further into a walk, and Sollux pulled out the map they had taken from the shop. They had strayed from the correct path a little, though while it was nothing they could not fix with some off the trail hiking, the pair decided (eventually) that it was not worth the risk of getting lost. There were some paths that they could use after a few dozen kilometres anyway, which although slightly longer would be a far safer route.

The route took them on a beautifully scenic walk, with wild flowers and mountain views galore.

"Jerky is fucking gross," Vriska grumbled as she popped a piece in her mouth. Regrettably though, they needed to eat it to survive. "If everything goes back to normal, I swear I'm never touching this stuff again."

"At leatht it'th not thpam,"

For their second night together, they walked a while away from the path and put up the small tent beside the safety of a wall of rock. Vriska took the first shift and began cooking up a simple daal, using the lentils and spice packets from her bag. The sun was bright, and putting the solar cooker in a patch of sunlight set the sauce bubbling away in no time. Before long, she poured in the rice, waited for the grains to cook then switched the cooker off.

The food was pretty good, though nothing compared to the amazing dishes made at the retainment organisation. At the memory of the food there, Vriska glumly ate her portion of the meal, glad to have escaped but sad to no longer get to eat the fine cuisine

At first Vriska found it somewhat hard to sleep, remembering the large group of people that had tried to break into the station, but soon found solace in the fact that a boy with literal laser vision was standing guard outside, and fell asleep with a small smile on her face.

The next day got them back on the right path.

"Do you know what we need?" Vriska asked.

"How the fuck could I know what'th going on in that methed up head of yourth?"

"Bicycles. It would be so much quicker and we could just strap these stupid rucksacks to them," she said, ignoring his comment.

Sollux snorted, "Good luck with finding a bike here. Let alone two,"

After a few more days with much of the same views and conversation, they found themselves on a road again, with this one having a sheer drop on the right hand side, with only a barrier for safety.

"Is that a pub?" Vriska asked at a building up high in the distance.

"A what?"

"Right, I forget the US does't have them,"

There was indeed an inn, presumably once for hikers to rest for the night, but like the station it had fallen into disrepair long before the flooding. With a few shoulder slams from Vriska, the door soon crashed open and weapons in hand, the pair tentatively embarked inside.

Empty.

Their first port of call was to barricade the door as heavily as possible, made easier by the tables and chairs inside. The pair then made their way upstairs, deciding upon a room that faced the path below as their 'base camp' of sorts.

At the back of the inn, Sollux discovered a cosy room containing what looked to be large basins for bathing in. There was graffiti and other minor vandalism here and there but most seemed to be intact. To their surprise, the water also seemed to be working, though what came out of the taps was bitterly cold and an off putting shade of brown at first. Once the water ran clear, they filled the largest tub, throwing in assorted bath salts and bubble bath they found in the cupboards before Sollux heated the water with his optic blasts until it steamed.

As there was no natural light in the room (and the electricity had been shut off so there was no point considering that) as many candles as possible had to be lit, accompanied by their torches. Their belongings were brought in, then the door to the baths was barricaded up and the pair stripped down to underwear.

"Ahhhh!" Vriska gasped with bliss as she slowly sank her aching body down into the water. She could not remember the last time she had had a bath, but it was most likely years, and definitely something she missed. Showers were alright but nothing could quite compare to a hot bubble bath.

Surprisingly, sitting in a bath with Sollux in only underwear was not at all awkward. Vriska decided that after everything they had been through, this was nothing in comparison. Besides, at the moment both of them were nothing more than heads floating above the water.

"What happened to your thhoulder?" asked Sollux upon noticing the large scabs marring her skin.

"Mountain lion," she replied casually.

"It would thuck if someone broke in right now,"

"Our luck has been outright shitty the past few days, so it should be alright now," she yawned. "If you jinx us though I swear I'll drown you in the toilets,"

"You're thuch a lovely young woman, Vrithka,"

"Thanks, I try" she snorted, before taking a deep breath and submerging her head beneath the water, running her fingers through her hair to scrub the dirt out. Thankfully the water was incredibly murky from the bath salts, so all the dirt from the pair was not overly visible.

"Is there any shampoo?" she asked once above water.

"No. We were lucky enough to find all this thtuff, thhampoo would have been puthhing it,"

"Ehh,"

Vriska sat up suddenly, grabbed a bath bomb she had found and dropped it in. First a layer of gold glitter spread across the surface of the water, followed shortly by end explosion of crimson as the main body of the bath bomb dissolved.

"It lookth like mutant blood. That'th fucked up," Sollux commented. "Thpeaking of mutant bloodth, did you hear thothe rumourth about KK?"

"No, the only person I spoke to was Eridan, and Karkat was the only person he didn't talk shit about, other than Kanaya,"

"Kanaya tho wanted to get in your pantth by the way,"

"What!" Vriska cried. "Since when?"

"Pfft, of courthe you'd be too dithtracted by TV,"

"I fucking wasn't! Explains a lot to be honest though. Hope she didn't think I was leading her on,"

"Thince when did you feel bad for the dumb thapth who crush on you?"

"Kanaya is nice. She helped me out a lot, unlike the rest of you dumb fucks,"

"You wouldn't recognithe her now; thhe'th changed a lot. Become a lot harder,"

"Good for her," Vriska shrugged.

"Anyway, what were you saying about Karkat?"

"Oh yeah, FF was telling me how thhe'th pretty thure he'th a mutant blood,"

"Oh yeah?"

"NP thaid that thhe remembered a little from thothe fightth they made uth do ageth ago, and how KK wath really over defenthive, like obviouthly you dont want to get hurt, but thhe reckonth there wath thomething dodgy going on,"

"I doubt that means anything though. He's just a crabby little asshole. It wouldn't surprise me if he was doing it just to mess with Nepeta,"

"Nah, that girl knowth thhit about body language, if thhe thayth thimething ith up, then thomething ith up,"

"I'm not convinced," she pouted.

"Think about it. There ith, or wath, one of every blood colour. Kinda weird don't you think?"

Vriska looked up at the ceiling and thought about it. Unlike Sollux clearly, she did not pay much attention to the blood colours of the group, but it was worth a go.

'_Maroon blood is... Aradia? Bronze is Tavros of course. Sollux is the gold blood. Lime blood, no idea I don't think anyone is lime. Olive blood... Nepeta possibly. Kanaya is the jade blood. Terezi is a teal blood. I'm cerulean. Equius must be indigo. Gamzee is purple, no one else could be. Violet is fishface, and Feferi is tyrian... Oh_.'

"Watching your face ath you went though that wath fucking hilariouth,"

"Shut up," she snapped. "That is fucking weird though, when did you notice?"

"FF. Thhe'th all about blood colour meaning nothing, but that doethn't mean thhe doethn't manage to sniff them out like a blood hound, bleth her," Sollux paused for a moment, then snorted at his pun.

"Oh god, I forgot you two were dating,"

"I almotht feel bad for you, ED mutht have never thhut up about uth,"

"That he didn't. I bet you two were disgustingly cute. But yeah that's just... huh. And the only gaps are lime blood or mutant blood, and Karkat definitely flushes red," Vriska frowned, then smirked as she propped her legs up on the opposite side of the bath. "Well done, Sherlock. Never thought I'd meet a mutant blood!"

"Explainth why he hath a chip on hith thhoulder the thize of fucking Ruthia,"

"When will the two of you admit you're in the deep throes of passionate hatred with each other?"

"You can fuck off," Sollux jabbed his finger at Vriska's leering face before reclining against the side of the bath once more.

This did nothing to stop Vriska giggling at him, promoting him to playfully swipe her legs off the edge of the bath where they were resting beside him, and into the water.

"Forget girlth have body hair,"

"Oh? Does this not turn you on?" she pouted jokingly as she held her arms over her head. "What do you expect when we don't have a razor,"

"I don't really give a fuck. Mith thhaving my face though," he replied, rubbing his jaw where a decent amount of facial hair now resided.

"Yeah, I only shaved my legs for those dumb parties the Condesce sent me out for; the guys I was targeting were the kind who liked that hair free look. Don't miss that at all. Though I did like having hair free armpits. All this feels gross, I heartily recommend shaving the pits,"

"What do thmooth legs even feel like?"

"Like your legs are dolphins. It admittedly feels great, but the upkeep is boring,"

They continued talking shit for a while longer.

'_I'll just close my eyes for a second_,' Vriska decided, and it seemed that Sollux had the same thought.

Before long, the pair found themselves sitting up suddenly (Vriska, because some of the wax had made its way over to her cheek and burnt it, and Sollux due to her scream of shock). The water they were sitting in had long gone tepid, their fingers wrinkled and many of the candles no more than puddles of wax.

"Thit."

* * *

><p><strong>== Be someone we haven't heard<strong> **from in a while!**

You are now Jade Harley, and you are making tea.

From the oven wafted the fragrant smell of rosemary and garlic as the islander pulled a tray of roast potatoes from the oven. Shutting the door with a swing of her hips, Jade placed the tray on the draining board and carefully used a knife to test if the meal was cooked.

Crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside. Perfect!

With a small but nonetheless toothy grin, she scooped them out of the tray and into a serving dish, before placing them on the table alongside the vegetable stew.

Ping!

Jade hurried over to the microwave and took out the leftover rabbit meat, which she also added to the table.

"_John_!" she shouted. "_Tea's ready_!"

"Okay!" came a faint shout from downstairs. He had five minutes before Jade would start eating, a rule they had both agreed upon for when the other was working in the shop. Fortunately, John only took a few minutes to shut up and was up like a bullet.

"Looks great," he commented as he sat down. "Though heating up a bunch of my leftovers doesn't really count as completing your cooking chores."

"Pfff, food is food!" she laughed and dug into her meal now that John had served himself.

For a while they spoke about the day's shenanigans, then they were quiet for a bit as they continued eating.

"So," John murmured. "How have you been... You know, the spacey thing."

"Oh!" Jade said, then lowered her voice and said with a teasing smile, "The spacey thing,"

"Yes, the spacey thing,"

"I want to practice, but I'm just so scared that I could release another one of those weird creatures,"

"Fair enough,"

"Did you see it?"

"I don't think so, no,"

"Ahh, I don't know. It was scary but at the same time it didn't seem to want to hurt me at all!"

"Huh, well would it be a bad thing to release another one then?"

"No," Jade said forcefully. "Not only don't I even know what it is, but I don't want to risk another one being killed if they are harmless."

"Yeah that's a good point," John shrugged, then began collecting plates.

"And the windy thing?"

"Still no luck! I've been practicing trying to move things in the shop but I think I'm just freaking out the customers,"

"I still don't get all this stuff with the acid rain either,"

"It's not too much if a stretch to imagine that the Condesce engineered it somehow," John mused as he began washing up.

"Well that's awfully nice of the Condesce! She's already wiped out a shitton of habitats for flora and fauna other than humans with the tidal waves, but its nice to see she's thinking about harming only people now!" Jade frowned, aggressively drying the baking tray.

"Shh,"

"Huh?"

John said nothing, but dried his hands on the dishcloth and headed for the bathroom which was the base for the egg. His head suddenly popped out with a grin as he motioned Jade into the room.

"It's hatching!"

"Aaa!" she shrieked, dropping the tray, cursing then sped to the bathroom.

Propped up in the sink on a nest of blankets was the egg, shaking from side to side as whatever was inside chipped away at the shell.

A piece of shell fell, followed by another and another. The creature inside was clearly much smaller than the egg it occupied, and Jade worried that it might be hatching prematurely.

Suddenly, a tiny clawed hand poked out from inside, and Jade moved closer, helping the creature out, prompting a gasp of shock from the girl.

Inside was a small baby bird... thing, about the size of a tennis ball.

Fuck it, Jade put her hand into the warm, gooey insides of the egg and scooped out the creature.

Nestled in her palms, she could now see it much better. The bottom half of the creature was a strange, almost eel like tail. But as for the top half, it was undoubtedly that of a wrinkled, newborn human, though its skin had an almost pale orange shine to it. Attached to the back were a pair of strange stubby limbs that Jade recognised immediately as a baby pair of wings, and to add to the bird features, the arms and human hands of the creature had the texture of a crows foot on them, with small claws tipping the chubby fingers.

It was messed up, but it was undoubtedly Dave.

"It's a baby bird eel thing Dave!" John said.

"Yeah, it's definitely Dave!" Jade gasped.

**== Pet him!**

Jade ran a finger over the small tuft of blonde hair on his head.

At this, the baby reached out a tiny hand and held onto Jade's finger.

"Peep!" he cried, and at this their hearts melted.

"Oh my god he's so cute!"

"You're so adorable!"

"What do baby lab experiments eat?" asked Jade. "You're the bird expert, John,"

"Uhh, god, I don't know... worms? Breadcrumbs?"

"Do we have internet here?"

"I tried connecting to the port in the wall, but no results. It probably went down with the tidal waves,"

"Damn, how will we know what to feed him?"

"Maybe one of the villagers will know. Until then he'll have to make do with the leftover yolk from his egg."

Said leftover yolk seemed to go down just fine with the creature, though before long he fell asleep in John's hands, clutching at his thumb for warmth. An hour after his 'birth' the baby was already looking much sweeter, with his cheeks having filled and the wrinkles gone, though his eyes still had not opened.

"We have to feed him every ten minutes from dawn to dusk I think," John said. "If he's anything like a baby bird. But he's also like a human so?"

"I can't really remember what baby people eat... Oh yeah! Milk!"

"I have no idea where we're going to get that," pouted John.

"Well I'm not feeding him if that's what you're suggesting!"

"What? No, I wasn't saying that at all!"

The Dave thing did not seem to be mobile outside of wriggling from side to side and grabbing things with his hands, so they decided that he was safe enough if they filled a basket with blankets and placed him in the middle of it, with one of them covering him for warmth. They placed this bundle in the gap between the sofa bed and the radiator, and were thankful that he remained silent and asleep all night, until they were woken by loud chirping at dawn.

With that, a long day began.

* * *

><p><strong>== How are the meowrails?<strong>

You are now Aradia Megido, or what is left of her.

The three flew for a day, stopping only for food and toilet breaks. Aradia was certain that the only reason Nepeta returned with food was because of Equius' unwavering trust in the robot.

Though great swathes of the land were flooded, there were areas that had not been submerged, and this was where they rested. While the two mutants ate, Aradiabot would pull her hair over her shoulder, lie on her front and go into a sort of sleep/sunbathing mode as a set of solar panels unfurled from her back like delicate moth's wings.

Whenever Nepeta returned from her hunting trips her eyes were red and puffy, and her body often had a number of minor wounds, which Equius would fuss over like a mother hen. It was painfully obvious that she was running off to cry and vent her fury and frustration at the situation. The community she had been working so hard on to renew had just been washed away as if it was nothing more than writing in the sand.

Equius' work on her body was impeccable, even though even he did not fully understand the formulas that were fed into her mind. Regardless, Aradia could feel emotions fully again, and after the years of nothing but apathy, sensations were painful. The intensity of the love chip that Equius had implanted was particularly agonising, and it brought on an even more arduous bout of anger. Regrettably, she was lost to the sudden sensations and not only beat her engineer, but then kissed him!

Ugh.

The robot pushed her lips together. Thinking back on the events that had transpired made her feel embarrassed, and she hoped that Equius had forgotten the kiss already, but it was clear he had not by the occasional hopeful glance aimed at her.

UGH!

It was a mistake and she was not afraid to admit it. She would have to inform him, but maybe not when he was so nervous awaiting Nepeta's arrival, for that would be cruel.

Once Nepeta was back with a pair of skinned rabbits slung over her back, Aradiabot picked herself up, folding away the solar panels, and carried the pair of mutants once more until they found an oasis.

Thankfully, night had begun to set in, and so the water was not too hot. Before long, Nepeta had stripped down to her underwear and swam laps about the large pool of water, while Equius collected whatever fuel he could find to cook the rabbit.

As Aradia tended to the modest fire, Nepeta and Equius checked the perimeter once more for wild animals or people. The moon shone brightly and before long the pair were covered in mosquito bites.

"I'm sorry about Ponce, if I had known I would have made a stronger effort to help take her with us,"

"It wasn't your fault," Nepeta sighed. "I just miss her, and it doesn't help that we're stuck with that fake Aradia,"

"It really is her on the inside, you know,"

"Purrobably just the Condesce messing with us again,"

Equius simply sighed, knowing he would not be able to convince Nepeta that Aradiabot was safe; she would have to come to that conclusion on her own.

When they returned, the rabbits lay on a large leaf, cooked to perfection alongside some small yellow fruit. Aradia looked up at their return, the eerie glowing eyes of hers flicking back down to the fire.

"What are these these fruit?" Equius asked as he sat next to her.

"They are dates. You need more variation in your diet than meat." she replied in her deadpan voice. "I'm surprised you do not recognise them; Nepeta has prepared them for you dozens of times."

"Yeah! Good point!" Nepeta said with a pout. "A ghost robot thing remempurrs my cooking ofur the person eating it, typical!"

"My apologies, I was too busy eating to ask what was in the meals," replied Equius with a somewhat pale complexion, prompting a giggle from the two girls.

The meal went down well, with the mutants feeling full and sleepy.

"Are you content here?" Aradiabot asked.

"Why?" said Nepeta.

"I have business I must attend to. Business I can physically do now, thanks to my new form,"

Nepeta narrowed her eyes. "Oh? What business is this exactly?"

"You as a living mortal could not possibly understand,"

"Try me," the olive-blood frowned.

For a few seconds Nepeta glared at the robot, which Aradia returned with the blankest look imaginable.

"I have to kill Vriska Serket," she finally said, with a vein of emotion travelling through her words.

"Oh!" Nepeta's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, uhh, well how about that! Equius! Do you mind if we have a quick chat, thank you furry much!"

Once the Leo deemed they were far enough away, she hissed, "Look! She wants to kill people! That is not normal!"

"After all she has been through I am more surprised that she has not left us sooner. Her emotions will have been tearing her apart,"

"Well maybe if you didn't try to program her to fall in love with you she would not be so confused,"

"We can point fingers later,"

"Well what are we going to do? We can't just let her rush off to the retainment organisation. She'll get killed!"

The argument continued for a few minutes longer, until the pair returned to the fireside.

"Aradia. I understand that you're mad, but killing Vriska isn't going to solve anything! And besides, you can't just stroll into that purrlace,"

At this, the robot's face softened into a small smile. "Thank you for your concern but you need not worry. Equius' pieces are easy to find, and I am certain that she is no longer in that place. She must pay for her crimes. I am sorry for upsetting you, however,"

"You don't need to do this, Aradia," Equius agreed.

"This is not something that can be changed, sorry. If you wish to be moved, however, that can be arranged."

The mutants avoided Aradia's gaze, but eventually Equius said, "Do you know how close we are to a human settlement?"

"There is one an hours walk away to the east. That should hopefully be enough for you."

"Yes, not too close or too far," Nepeta sighed.

Aradia stood up. "Then this is goodbye,"

"Wait!" Equius flushed, looked to the ground then finally managed to hold the robots gaze. "Will we see you again?"

With a chuckle, the robot nodded.

"Don't go dying," mumbled Nepeta.

And with that, Aradia shot off to the west. It was time to make Vriska pay.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Yes, that kiss scene may have been inspired a little by the one in road to eldorado if anyone picked that up, and hopefully you guys like erikar! I started this fic off with a firm intention to have erifef endgame, but a friend of mine converted me, and I realised that I couldn't see the eridan and feferi I write in this ending together anyway so it all works out hopefully :) sorry to any erifef shippers though!

The sunset quote from the start of vriska's section is from 'Le Petit Prince' which is a beautiful book I would highly recommend!

Also I have decided to write this mostly on my phone now, so that should definitely speed up updates uvu

Aaand please keep letting me know what your fav scenes are for the new coverart! PM or review :D I'll pick one when I get to five or more

Thank you for all the lovely reviews (300+ now aaaaaa!), and as always thanks for reading and sticking with this monster of a fanfic (almost at 200,000 words now! WOW) 38o


	30. Make her pay 2: This time it's personal

**== How is the Condesce doing? Shouldn't she be monitoring their progress on the mission or something? Be the Condesce when Karkat, Terezi and Eridan's mission began.**

You cannot be the Condesce then because she was asleep.

**== Wake her!**

Was it a knock that had woken her?

The Condesce slowly sat up from her previous position slumped over the table and blearily looked about the room. Empty.

There was a strange wailing sound coming from the next room, and clutching a hand to her head, she stood up. The lights were blinding, thus the first action she took was to switch them off. How long had she been sleeping? A glance at the clock revealed that she had only been asleep for a few hours. She then turned to the mirror behind her desk and quickly made sure she looked presentable, before she called in Doc Scratch.

For the duration of the half-hour wait for the man to arrive from the other side of the facility, she messaged one of her closer subordinates as to the noise coming from the walls about her.

"Your highness, is there a problem?" barked one of the higher ups, an indigo-blooded surgeon with dark hair cropped close to her skin. Evidently she had rushed from where the soldiers were being treated, as specs of olive and bronze blood clung to her clothing.

"Cut the crap, it would please me greatly to know what that obnoxious noise is coming from the next room," the Condesce snapped.

At this the woman's complexion grew ashen, but she effectively hid her fear of the Condesce as she replied, "Ma'am, we are not sure what those noises are at present, but we have a team dedicated to finding out the source and are working as we speak now. We are fairly certain that the source is a modified version of the sprite creature Ms Harley released,"

"Fine, get out of my sight."

The Condesce waited for the soft chlink to signify the door shutting, then stood up and headed for the door at the back of her room, which led to her private quarters. Her neck was aching like nothing else thanks to falling asleep on the desk and the fuchsia-blood still had another twenty-five minutes until Doc Scratch arrived.

Sprawled out under the covers was Gamzee, the source of the knocking that had woken her. Clearly he had gotten bored and fallen back to sleep again in a matter of minutes. Fucking useless.

It would not do to have him here when Doc Scratch arrived, and as

Such the Condesce grabbed him by the collar and began to shake him.

"Get dressed and get out," she ordered once he was awake. She did not hesitate, not even at the lovesick gaze he gave her once his eyes opened; she could not afford to get attached again, and certainly not to this brutish subjugglator-in-training. Any feelings were purely his. Gamzee was her bodyguard and plaything when she was bored and frustrated. Nothing more.

The Condesce called for an errand boy to escort Gamzee off to his keepers, then brushed her hair and freshened up for the arrival of Doc Scratch.

"Good morning, ma'am," he said as he entered the room. Doc Scratch was one of the few people who did not exhibit fear around her. It was because of this that the Condesce immediately knew something was amiss at the uneasy look in his eyes.

"How did you fuck up?" she sighed, before her eyes widened. "Bring in the team I sent out to the base."

Doc Scratch grimaced, "They have yet to reach the inside of the building,"

"Is Ampora as much of a fuckup as his grandfather?"

"Debatable. They are on the correct path but they are traveling too slowly. Ampora and Vantas are fighting, and it is causing problems,"

"Ahh of course, the mutant blood. Well I can't blame him. If he was not useful to me I would have had the little shit culled long ago," she said, half to herself, before turning to face Doc Scratch once more. "To the control room. I should have been in there hours ago, why was I not awakened and informed of their departure?"

"You killed the last errand boy who attempted that,"

"Ah, of course."

Time was of the essence, thus they jogged to the control room, which was thankfully only a minute away. Any sort of movement inside was a pain for the tyrian blood thanks to her ridiculously tall horns, and she cursed her lack of foresight for not raising the ceilings further.

Inside the control room were rows of desks each with a computer and employee assigned to it. Monitors lined the walls all about them, displaying the view the bugs she had almost everywhere had, and various readings from the location and automatic subtitles of any conversation. All eyes were on one screen at the moment though, the largest.

On the back wall was a cinema sized screen displaying a first person view of someone making their way through a tunnel, and sat beneath it with a look of intense focus on her face was the jade blooded Kanaya.

"He's steering off the correct path again," an aide shouted, prompting Kanaya to produce a string of curses in her native Russian, before she fed back to Eridan that he was going the 'wrong damn way'.

Beside the Russian girl was a younger version of the Handmaid, looking pensive at the situation.

"Brief me," the empress ordered as she sat down.

"All is going according to plan, your highness. They are somewhat slower than planned, but it should not be an issue,"

"Have we got any intel on the angels?" the Condesce asked.

"Unfortunately we cannot see beyond the satellite images, but it does not seem as if they have been released," Kanaya's aide replied.

Kanaya had picked up the skill of being ground control (as it were) slowly at first, but once she was settled into it she soon became vital asset to the seawitch's endeavours. Not in the least because she knew how to deal with the pompous Aquarius.

The sound of aggressive arguing filled the air as Karkat and Terezi's faces occupied the screen in place of the previous tunnels. It seemed that Terezi was ordering them to stop fighting before they continued. Eventually the three left the vents and ended up in the open air, and it was obvious that Kanaya was distracted by the ocean view.

A while longer and they were heading up paths built by the refugees on the sides of the building. The jade blood realitterated the warnings about the 'angels', which went on closed ears until the aide on Kanaya's left gave a shrill shriek.

"The angels have been released!" she announced, but by the time Kanaya turned back to her monitor, Eridan had seemly fallen over as the screen was dark, and the only noises she could hear were Karkat's incessant swearing.

"What just happened?" barked Kanaya. "Eridan?"

He tapped out a short response.

"Terezi's gone and they're continuing with the mission," she eventually said, worry written all over her face.

"Where did she go?"

"They're not sure. She could have fallen into the water or she could have been attacked by the angel,"

The Condesce pursed her lips angrily.

"And the other two?"

"They... seem to be fine, albeit very shocked," Kanaya said after translating. "Karkat is incredibly distressed, and seems to have lost all focus."

"Great this is just what we need," the tyrian blood sighed. "Keep going, alert me if any important updates occur. Handmaid, with me."

The Handmaid frowned slightly, but followed nonetheless.

"I want to show you something," the Condesce eventually grinned once they reached a door. Her grins were always toothy, and given hers were narrow and dangerously sharp, it was enough to terrify even the bravest of souls.

The door in the question looked deceitfully simple, until the Condesce began the elaborate process of unlocking it; she had learnt after her previous error with the Psiioniic.

Inside the room was an odd looking vehicle, which the Condesce marched right up to, before opening the hatch and climbing down inside it.

"Come, come!" she called out to the girl, who reluctantly climbed down behind her. "Do you know what these are?"

A circular room filled the interior of the vehicle, and lining the walls of this were twelve coffin like structures. Through the window at the top, she could make out the faces of people like her.

"What is this?" she demanded.

"Just something I found a few years ago," the Condesce shrugged. "And they're ready for harvest... well some are. Most have been damaged."

The woman walked over to a control point at the centre of the room, and entered a number of commands, before the door to one of the far caskets flashed white. The eyes of the creature within opened suddenly, before squinting shut with pain as the liquid that filled the casket got in her eyes. Slowly, the liquid drained away before the tube inserted into her airways was extracted, as well as the other such needles and health monitoring pads were retracted, and then the door swung open.

At this the Handmaid's eyes grew wide with fear as she hid behind the Condesce.

A humanoid fell out of the casket, landing on her hands and knees as she coughed and retched.

Whatever she was, the creature was a seadweller, or something that looked similar judging by the ear fins and gills.

"You!" the Condesce called. " Get up."

"Get off my back and give me a glubbin' minute, will you?" the creature snarled. "Where are my clothes?"

The Condesce grabbed a satchel from under the control panel and threw it at the girl.

"Put those on, then report to my office. An errand boy will be waiting for you outside, he will take you to me," the Condesce said, before turning and leaving the vehicle, prompting an 'eep!' from the Handmaid, who dashed after her.

"Wait!" the creature cried. "That you Dam?"

"You're mistaken," the Handmaid said in the bravest voice she could muster, before leaving. She had always hated the whole biological engineering bullshit; the first time she had seen the Psiioniic all tied up had made her vomit.

After running to catch up to the Condesce, the woman turned to her and said, "There is our rescue party for Terezi."

"What is she?"

"She's me," the empress smirked.

* * *

><p><strong>== What's going on?<strong>

Error: cannot access file now

**== That's bs! Where did that girl come from!**

Error: cannot access file now

**== UGH. Fine. Be Eridan.**

You are now Eridan Ampora at the front of this stories timeline, and you have been brought in for questioning.

Despite somehow feeling even more emotionally mixed up than usual, Eridan felt a curious tingle of hope in his chest. After his massive fuck up of kissing Karkat, not only had the Cancer not freaked out, but he had actually _kissed him back_. In ordinary circumstances he may have said that nothing could have brought his mood down, but in this case he was being marched off for interrogation, and as such no amount of reciprocated feelings of pity could make him feel calm.

'_I fucked up by takin' it too fast though_,' he thought. '_I scared Kar_.'

Oh well, there was no taking back what had already happened. Besides, he had promised to himself after the Fef incident that he was going to stop being so down all the time like he was when he was younger. His piss poor attitude drew his best and closest friend away so much so that she shouted at him, which was so out if character that he flinched at the mere thought. He had fucked up their moirailagence big time and he would never get it back.

Enough moping, he decided after remembering that this was exactly what he needed to stop doing.

The tower seemed similar to the retainment organisation in that it was enormous and somewhat empty feeling. Walking through the corridors brought the prince back to his memories of the first journey him, Vriska, Aradia, Sollux and Feferi took into the accursed place. It had been terrifying, and even years later he still felt his heart twinge in fear as he woke and realised that he was still one of the Condesce's pawns. Naturally, this meant that whenever possible, before bed he would plug himself into the internet to pretend he was anywhere other than _there, _otherwise there was no chance of him getting to sleep... well, other than having someone sleeping beside him; he had gotten too used to sharing a bed with Feferi, and it was a habit which had stuck. Sleeping alongside Vriska was no comparisson though, as she stole the blanket in her sleep as if her life depended on it, not to mention the snoring...

His companions, big burly US soldiers, were talking about activity below them in the refugee camp gathered at the waterline of the building. Apparently they had been noisier than usual after a seabird fell into the water. By the sounds of it they were starving though, so it was not really that unusual, or so Eridan thought.

Suddenly, the soldiers on either side of him stopped walking, and he found himself before a door. Inside was a woman with greying hair, dark skin and a very serious looking face.

"Good morning Mr Ampora, we are going to ask you a series of questions. Do try and answer them to the best of your knowledge," she said, with a strong New York accent. Her voice was calm, and it sounded more as if she was a concerned teacher rather than an interregator. Though reality soon kicked in as he was lowered into a chair and bound to it. "When were you first taken into the custody of TROLL?"

"I'm not tellin' you shit," he replied.

The woman gave a small smile as she pulled a few papers from her desk over onto the pile on her lap. "That would not be recommended."

Eridan merely gave her a defiant look, before turning his head to the side.

"Honestly, I would much rather go about this without any fuss, for both of our sakes. We have you caught and you are not going anywhere, you really should be a little worried,"

Snorting, the violet blood said, "You could newer scare me as much as She does. You may as wwell giwe up."

"She?"

Fuck.

"So who is this woman? Is she the head of the organisation?"

Having learnt his lesson, Eridan remained silent.

The woman pouted a little, before turning to her clipboard and writing a few notes.

"I have to say, your friend was a lot more vocal than you," she commented casually.

At this Eridan flinched.

"What did you to to Kar?"

"So his name is Kar is it? Short for Karkat or Karlso I presume?"

His face paled. He had messed up again.

The interrogator asked him a few more questions, with no response, until she began to rummage about through her papers again and pulled out a photo.

It was of an Inuit woman, possibly indigo blooded, with a stern expression betrayed by her laugh lines. She looked shockingly like Feferi, until Eridan realised that the woman pictured was Fef's mother. He had all but forgotten his days with her and by extension his father, being raised alongside Feferi at a brothel.

"You recognise her, don't you? We did some research into your history, as well as Ms Peixes' as we have reason to believe she was taken with you. Now, using this data we think we may have uncovered something very disturbing. Eridan, what do you remember of your grandfather, if anything?"

His grandfather? All Eridan could remember were vague memories of his father shouting down the phone at someone, and Feferi's mother comforting him after said conversations... as well as the one time a very gruff, pompous man came to visit out of the blue. Eridan was young, but he remembered the man had seemed flighty, and his father cried a whole bunch a few days later. After that, the calls stopped.

Another image was held up, showing a handsome older man, violet blooded, with scars across his face and an otherworldly look about him. He had the same kind of face as the Handmaid and the Condesce, in that his face was somewhat too long, and there was something unsettling about his eyes. Yet his skin was pale and freckled, just like Eridan's had once been, and there were no horns in sight.

"This is your grandfather," the woman said. "His name was Cronus, but he earned the nickname 'Orphaner Dualscar' due to his murdering of countless parents,"

"Wwhy did he murder parents?"

"Rumours were that he was feeding them to some wild animal, but the bodies were never recovered,"

Eridan snorted, deciding that was where he had gotten that murderous streak in his childhood from. He had forgotten about his plans to flood the earth, though it made little difference seeing as the Condesce had gone through with it now.

"He was mostly a pirate by trade, he would intercept shipping containers and holiday makers, steal their goods and hold them hostage for hefty sums. Though one day he was found clubbed to death in a small town outside of Johannesburg. A culprit was never caught, but the suspect was believed to be..." The woman rummaged about and pulled out another photo. "This man. He was never captured, however."

Eridan took back all bad things he had thought about Dualscar: this photo was the single most disturbing human he had ever seen. Dualscar had been rather dashing, even though he had been an awful man, but this... _thing_...

The image was of a man who clearly felt no remorse about his actions. His hair was an unruly mess of locks, and his face was smeared with a combination of stark white face paint and various shades of dried blood, with those piercing purple eyes staring right into the camera, open wide. He was smiling slightly, a hint of his yellowing teeth on show, and Eridan felt terrified. This man killed his grandfather, and he looked disturbingly like Gamzee.

"Finally, have you heard of a woman called the Condesce?"

Eridan concealed his emotions, and replied, "Sure, she's Fef's aunt, that's common knowledge."

"Well we have reason to believe that the people Ampora was killing were being given to the Condesce, and that once their agreement was over she removed him. But we have also uncovered evidence that she is not Feferi's aunt, but her grandmother,"

"Wwhy don't you arrest her then?"

"Easier said than done. When did you find out that the Condesce was the leader of this organisation?"

"I didn't say that," he frowned.

"Would you like to hear more about these ancestors? We have one on Kanaya,"

"Howw did you knoww about Kan?"

"Thank you for confirming her taking part in your actions,"

"Fuck!" swore Eridan.

He vowed again not to say another word, and managed to uphold it this time. The woman spent only another ten minutes before she decided it was enough for the day.

"Eridan, one last thing. We have someone on the inside of your organisation who has been feeding us information,"

"The fuck do you need me for then?"

"You'll find out shortly," the interrogator smiled, before he was escorted out.

His next stop was a operating room, where his eyes grew wide with fear at the sight of five surgeons waiting. The guards on either side of him grabbed his arms to prevent escape as he was manhandled into the chair.

Before his legs were strapped, he managed to kick one of the guards in the jaw, knocking him back, and he thanked his mutant genes for his increased height and strength. Due to this, he managed to leap to his feet and grabbed the tray the tools were being held in, along with a scalpel, and smashed one guard in the head with it. A sickening crunch filled the room, before he threw the other knife at the guards leg, sending him falling to the ground then smacking him in the head too. Both guards collapsed on the floor, he turned to the doctors who flinched back in terror.

"What can we do to stop it?" one whispered under his breath.

It? The comment was like a fist to his stomach. Eridan had once been adored, and now he was little more than a laughing stock at best, and a savage beast at worst.

After taking all the potential communicative devices from the surgeons, he stole a biohazard suit from the back and combined it with a surgical mask, hoping it would buy him some time in being recognised.

"Does anyone hawe keys?" he ordered.

"What are you going to do?" asked one of the braver doctors.

"None a' your business," he replied, then patted her down until he found a key card. "Do you need biological ID for this to wwork?"

"I'm not sayin- fuck okay, please put that scalpel down! Each door requires a fingerprint as well as the card,"

"Okay, you're comin' wwith me," he said, and grabbed her by the arm.

"What? No, get off me you freak!"

Eridan wheeled round until his face was centimetres from hers.

"It's takin' you wwith me, or cuttin' off your thumb. Wwhich do you prefer?" The surgeon gulped but said nothing. Eridan held the scalpel to her neck, and said to the others, "If word of my escape gets out, she's dead."

Due to travelling with a surgeon, he was not noticed for a good stretch of corridor, with Eridan following the signs for the stairwell.

"Wwhere are the prisoners?"

"Bottom floor, you should know that," the surgeon snapped.

"For someone wwith a knife at their back, you're awwfully cocky,"

They had just reached the stairs when a tranquilliser dart bounced off the thick rubber on his suit.

"Shit!" muttered Eridan, before glancing about in an attempt to find something he could bar the door with, but there was nothing. Instead, once he was through into the stairwell he kicked the card reader with all he had, realising his mistake when an alarm went off. "_Shit_!"

He held onto the surgeons arm harder before running down the stairs at breakneck speed, getting down a good eight flights.

Before he knew what was happening, he stumbled and pulled the surgeon down with him, the scalpel falling alongside until they landed and it pierced through the thick rubber of the suit and then into his calf. Pain flooded through his system as he barked at the woman to help him up, instead receiving a kick in the guts as she grabbed the key card and dashed off, calling him 'an evil mutant freakshow' as she went.

Ripping the knife from his leg, he chose to hobble down the next flight of stairs and continued in this fashion for another flight before he collapsed to the ground from the pain and blood loss.

"Gotta get Kar," he growled to himself, and dragged his body round to the next flight, then slid down on his butt, wincing at every step.

After six more flights of this, his vision began to darken, and on the seventh his eyes just about picked up a form before him, a soldier by the looks of it, who picked him up and called for help. With a soft voice, they whispered, "You're an idiot, Eridan."

And with that, the violet blood passed out.

* * *

><p><strong>== Is he gonna live?<strong>

Like you're gonna be told that!

**== (-_-)**

Error, no words recognised

**== Okay okay, can we be one of the missing girls?**

You can be Terezi, Feferi is currently out of action

**== She's dead?!**

No. Unconscious.

**== Oh... be Terezi then, as she disappeared.**

You are now Terezi Pyrope of roughly a day prior, and you have just noticed a strange rustling sound on the wind while berating your team mate on being a classiest snob.

In the distance, Terezi could smell a blot of white travelling towards them, just about visible against the overcast sky, and she knew what must be done.

It was the elusive 'angel' that Kanaya had harped on about, and even from a distance it seemed mean, but it was getting closer.

Clank! The door swung open, and in a split second the teal blood whirled around and shoved Karkat and Eridan inside before barricading the door shut.

"Run!" she shouted. She could only hope the thin metal bar on the door would stop the monster, and if not they would hopefully have heeded her words.

Suddenly it was _there_ right infront of her, but she did not scream. Instead, she pulled the diving mask on, put the mouthpart between her teeth and stuck both middle fingers up as she fell backwards off the ledge towards the water. To her relief, she found that there was indeed sufficient water below her to dive into, and quickly moved into a correct diving position... or as correct as she was going to get when she hasn't had lessons for over five years.

'_Mum_?' she called out mentally. Ever since she had turned blind, her mother had spoken to her telepathically each night, asking about her day and so on. Oddly normal for what was a very unusual situation, but nonetheless Terezi looked forward to the conversations. There was nothing the woman could do to get her child back from the retainment organisation other than bide her time, and thankfully her mother had not been affected by the flooding. She had promised that she was on the case of finally bringing down the Condesce with Terezi's inside information. '_Can you hear me_?'

To her relief, an almost immediate response came. _'What is it, flower_?'

'_I'm falli-_' began Terezi, before she hit the water and sank down into the cold depths. For a few seconds she held her breath, partially from shock and partially from forgetting she had a diving suit on.

'_Terezi, what's wrong, are you okay_?'

'_I'm okay, I think. Had to dive off a very high tower into the sea. Figured I'd get some last words in_!'

'_Oh dear, my lovely, those wouldn't have done at all as final words_!'

'_Whatever, I was panicking_!' Terezi replied as she swam to the air. Once her head broke the surface, she found herself sniffing from left to right furiously as she attempted to find land.

There!

A smudge of chocolate and brownie trifle over a vast expanse of blueberry slush, piled up against a pillar of coconut. The refugee camp? Hopefully they would take well to people like her.

'_Have you been in contact with more people about the Condesce_?'

'_I wish I had good news for you, but it's very hard to get people to take you seriously when you say you know all this information from your daughter through a psychic cconnection_,'

That was fair enough, she decided, and after more reassurances that she was okay, she cut connection with her mother.

The refugee camp was composed of hundreds of boats all strapped together. Some were enourmous yachts, some were little more than row boats with an engine strapped to the back, but all it seemed had heard wrong about the US base taking in refugees. Picking a boat from these to climb onto was the hard bit, as she wanted to avoid detection where ever possible, but eventually settled upon a smallish boat with a little cabin on top.

With every step further onto land, Terezi found herself shaking more and more, until she collapsed on top of the boat, curling into a ball: jumping off such a tall building was nerve racking for even the most seasoned soldier, let alone a blind child.

After a few seconds, she noticed a little boy staring at her from the cabin, and she did her best to look nonthreatening, giving him a big grin, before she remembered her teeth were all pointed like a dragon's. The little boy began crying from the sight and his face was replaced by an angry parent's. Shit, time to move out.

Before she could dive back into the water, the man cried out, "Wait! It's not safe outside, come in,"

"Like I'd trust you!" Terezi shouted back.

"Listen, please, I promise on my blood I won't harm you," he replied. Terezi sniffed more delicately in his direction and found the man before her to be a blue blood, thus his words were probably genuine. Besides, if he was lying and intended to hurt her, she could easily take him out. "Please."

"Fine,"

The inside of the boat was cold and damp, though it was obvious that the residents had tried to cosy it up as much as they could. Inside were who she presumed to be the boats owners: a burly but gentle looking man with an impressive moustache, and an equally burly woman with steely eyes. On her lap was the little boy and to their left were a small bunch of young women.

"I'm Arthor Zahhak, this is my wife Amylia and our son Sendul. And our maids, Fahria, Gledis, Xienli and Wrenel," the man said in his thick Scottish accent.

"Um, hello, my codename is Libra. It's probably safer for you if you dont know my real name,"

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Libra," said Arthor. "I invited you here for one reason. Do you know of my son? Equius Zahhak? Or of Nepeta Leijon?"

Terezi blinked in confusion, and took full notice of the almost concealed look of confusion on the woman's face. "Wait, you're Equius' and Nepeta's parents?"

"I'm the mutant's stepmother: no child of mine would be mutated. No offence meant to you, miss."

With a snort, Terezi replied, "Right. But yes, I did know Equius and Nepeta. She was your adopted daughter, wasn't she? I'm not going to lie, I was much closer to her than to Equius,"

"You _did_ know them? What happened?"

It was at this point that Terezi realised that the Condesce could probably head all that was going on... probably, and if she could then she would be _mad_. She mimed for a piece of paper and pen, which were promptly given to her, and she then wrote out her reply.

'Not safe to talk. One of their friends was murdered before them and Equius was severely affected, so he and Nepeta were sent away. No one knew where or if they live still. When I knew them they both seemed happy enough, and they had each other.'

'Thank you for your help. I understand that you are unable to disclose much so any information is much appreciated.' Mr Zahhak wrote in a highly elegant script. 'You are more than welcome to stay here."

'I must go, your supplies are stretched enough, and my boss will be sending someone for me. If they find me here you could well be killed.'

'If you see them, just let them know they're in our thoughts.' Mr Zahhak wrote, before saying aloud, "Be very careful. Most people around here would gladly skin your kind alive after the flooding."

Terezi smiled and nodded, before dashing out and diving into the ocean to swim out to another boat patch. While she cared little for Equius (she, like most of the mutants, found him a little creepy),Terezi worried a lot for Nepeta, and would definitely keep her promise to her family if she ever saw the olive blood again.

A good twenty minutes away was a seemingly abandoned boat, with a large sheet of tarp at the front. Terezi gave the boat a quick once over from the safety of the water, then hopped aboard and ducked under the tarp.

An hour or more she lay there, hidden and as such safe. She could only hope that the Condesce would send out someone to come pick her up, as she had not a clue where she was in the ocean, nor how to get back to the retainment organisation.

After another hour had passed, a hand grabbed the tarp she was under and slowly lifted it, giving her time to shoot forward and pin the attacker to the ground.

"Let's chill the motherglub out, shall we?" a dry voice said. Beneath her was another troll, a seadweller, but not one she recognised.

"Who are you?"

"Doesn't matter right now. If I dont pull you outta here quickly the seawitch will... Just move it."

Sounded good enough for Terezi. The seadweller carried another scuba diving vest and air cannisters, which Terezi swapped for her own. In under a minute they were back underwater and swimming away as quick as they could. A few miles away from the base was a boat, which the pair climbed onto.

"So who are you? You smell like a fushia but there's never more than two, and you'd be the third..."

"I'm Meenah. I'm not sure what's going on or how the glub I got here though. That hag's got some explaining to do,"

"Huh? Where are you from then?"

"I'm from Beforus. I don't think this is even the same planet?"

"You what?" Terezi frowned.

"If I knew I'd tell you, trust me kid,"

Terezi pouted, but did not push the woman, for the information was probably withheld for a reason. Besides, she would find out soon enough.

* * *

><p><strong>== Can we be Aradiabot now?<strong>

You may. You are now the ghost of Aradia, confined within the body of a robot, and have been travelling across the earth to find Vriska and make her pay.

It had been about a month now that Aradia had been travelling. She had begun in the United Arab Emirates, travelled through the middle east and then through northern Africa. The weather had been very sunny, much to her delight, and found that she would only have to stop flying for a few hours each morning, when she would walk instead. Her batteries would charge enough for almost full day of flying in an hour, meaning an hour of charging in the morning, before she set off flying, with her batteries depleting a few hours before sunrise.

Most fauna ignored her, seeing as she did not smell like a living creature, nor did they run away for she did not smell human. The metalic shine to some of her chassis attracted some birds however, and a few nights she found herself being attacked by starving carnivores.

Despite the anger blocking her circuits, she allowed herself brief detours to see the pyramids, Sphinx and other such archaeological icons, and she found her passion for the subject growing anew once more. Unfortunately there had been no time for thinking about her previous interests, but nonetheless she carried the illustrated archaeology book with her now, hidden away in a compartment where her stomach would have been had she been human. There had been just enough space for it, and Aradiabot liked to think that Equius had left the space for it. After all, he had saved it for her after her murder.

While on her travels, Aradia thought of Nepeta and Equius often, as well as the rest of the trolls. The years she had spent confined inside Equius' mind had been immensely dull as he was one of the few people she could speak to, and certainly one of the few normal ones. There were a few other spirits floating about, especially when they were still in the retainment organisation, though most of them unnerved Aradia (she was certain that a number were pedophilles). A few of them were kind people though: one was a slight woman with an immense concern for Tavros' safety, and another was a proud father of three young girls.

He had seen a small girl crying to herself down an alleyway on his way back home from work one day, and upon making his way to her, found himself knocked out. He woke up strapped in a chair with the little girl on one side of him and a tall intimidating woman on the other, presumably the girls mother. The woman left the girl to do the work, resulting in her pushing a number of needles into various points on his body. The blood from each needle was going into a carefully labeled bag, and as he noticed one called 'juggular' being picked up and began to struggle. Though the memory was hazy, he recalled her jabbing the needle into his neck, before the child swore angrily. Next thing he remembered was seeing his body limp on the table beneath him, with a vial nearby labeled 'last drops'. He had bled to death.

When Aradia asked what had happened to the bodies, he said that his flesh had been eaten and his bones ground into fertiliser for the woman's garden.

Revolting!

Truely revolting, and now that she was able to feel again, Aradia felt horrified enough to throw up; an odd sensation when one did not have a stomach. This memory drove her through her journey and renewed her sense of purpose.

When she reached the shoreline, the robot wondered how well her robotic body would fare against the ocean. On the one hand, she did not need to breathe, but on the other, much of her body was composed of metal with minute electrical charges travelling through all the wires and switches or... something. Hell if Aradia knew how this chassis of hers worked. As if a search queery had been posted, however, a little part of her robotic mind seemed to open up, reminding her that her body was indeed watertight to an absolute maximum of one-thousand metres, with anything more resulting in the destruction of her body. As a spirit, she wondered if it would be possible to possess a fish though, as part of her wondered what it would be like to swim down and down and down until she reached the ocean floor.

Saltwater rushed about her feet and then continued up the beach, before inevitably pulling back into the sea, and Aradia could feel the sand beneath her heels being washed away with it.

Her feet were cold.

_Cold_.

It was still so novel to feel, but the cold reminded her of when she was restricted to floating about as a ghost, and the idea of returning to feeling nothing _terrified_ her. Aradia quickly allocated part of her robotic mind to think about paradoxes, and her body soon began to warm again as it got itself into a state and began to work hard.

When around Equius she fought back the emotions furiously, not wanting him to know about how much she felt. She hated how he thought just putting a chip in her heart would give her feelings for him! Hated it, because fuck it she already _was_ getting feelings for the blue blood, and he did not need to do that, but by doing it he betrayed her trust completely.

In contrast to the soft crashing of the waves, Aradiabot put her face into her palms and began to sob, her crying only growing louder as she realised that tears were falling from her eyes. Equius had put so much thoughtful work into this, he had even used his own blood to fill it out, and then he had to ruin it by essentially forcing himself upon her!

Over the past years he had gotten so much better about the hemospectrum issues, but... ugh! Aradia plonked herself down on the sand, then immediately regretted her decision as the waves ran up the beach and wet her skirt and thighs. The skirt in question had been a beautiful piece of work that billowed about behind her as she walked, with a subtle geometric pattern dyed into the fabric. Of course, it had gotten ridiculously torn up while walking through the savannah, much to her dismay.

It felt good to cry, and before she knew it she sobbed about her death, the fate of all the twelve trolls and the fate of the earth. But crying would not fix any of her problems... and really neither would killing Vriska, but hell it would make her feel better.

A shell washed up beside her and she picked it up. It was dark with hints of greys and purples showing, and she smiled, before stashing it away in another compartment of hers. She then pulled off her skirt and wrung it out the best she could, before setting it on the hot sand behind her. The sun was still high in the sky so the skirt was dry in a matter of minutes, and was placed in the same compartment as the shell.

Using a piece of seaweed she found, she tied her hair up into a ponytail, then walked out into the ocean until her body disappeared under the waves.

Getting into a rhythm was important concerning her travel across the Atlantic, and she decided very early on that she did not want to be swimming at night, as the open ocean was bad enough in the daytime, let alone at night! An hour or two before sunset she would open out her solar panels and lay with them spread out on the surface of the water, her face staring down at the endless blue below. This was by far the worst part of her day, as she saw a number of dark shadows below her whenever she did it. How Eridan and Feferi were at home in these conditions she had no idea.

As soon as the batteries were full she snapped the solar panels away as fast as possible before shooting off into the sky and flying a little while above the ocean. Most nights were cloudy, though when she flew high enough she was greeted with a full sky of stars, and the view was breathtaking.

On her trip she saw sky whales and enormous sharks and all manner of sea monster from the mutation triggering waters. Her favourite encounter was an enormous shoal of flying fish who glided about alongside her. Her worst was the sight of an vast tentacled thing in the waters below, that shot out and grabbed an enormous sky whale from beside her. The journey after that was far more cautious.

One time after charging her batteries fully, she let herself drop from the surface and down into the depths of the ocean. To her disappointment there was very little to see due to the murkiness of the water. A shark noticed her while on this adventure, and she hitched a ride on its back for a short while after it learnt from biting her body that she was not food. It seemed pissed off, but it was a quick way to travel and she felt badass as fuck, not to mention safer. Her travels came to an end when it began to veer off course.

She spent almost another month crossing the ocean, and once land began to hazily appear in the distance she put all of her energy into shooting over the water, before reaching the debris covered beach of what was formerly the US just as her batteries depleted. When Aradiabot's foot touched solid ground, she found her body collapsing into a small pile on the floor, before she spread out and extended the solar panels from her back.

The ground was warm against her skin and she wished she could take a break for a few days, but she had no time to waste. As soon as she was fully charged she picked herself up and emmited another signal from her body to find Equius' robotic pieces. Both Vriska and Tavros seemed to be underground. Odd. While she could not pinpoint their location she could certainly go to a rough approximation of where they were, though later that day Vriska began to trek aboveground. Perfect.

Though the closer she got, the more she remembered Nepeta and Equius' pleas to not kill Vriska. Ugh! They did not get it. It was tough being a murder victim. It was tough and no one understood... mostly because all the other victims were dead.

Wanting time to think, the maroon blood decided to walk most of the distance, and flew at night.

Yet whenever she talked herself out of what was to come, she remembered the stories she was told of the siphoning, and the look in the cerulean blood's eyes as she wound up Aradia about Tavros' legs, and her determination was renewed.

* * *

><p><strong>== Make her pay!<strong>

You do not need to tell Aradiabot twice. She is on her way.

**== Be the bluh bluh huge bitch**

You are now Vriska Serket, and you are having an argument with Sollux Captor.

"It's all true! I met your granddad, why would I lie about that?"

"You lie about fucking everything, Vrithka," he sighed.

Vriska had decided after much deliberation to go ahead and tell Sollux about what she had learnt from the Psiioniic. He believed none of it.

"Okay, well tell me why Aradia and the Handmaid look so similar then!"

"People can look thimilar without being related,"

"They can but they're pretty much the same person, only Aradia was much shorter,"

"Well maybe if thhe wath thtill alive we could draw a comparithon!"

"Fucks sake, I already told you why I did that!"

"That doethn't change the fact that you killed her,"

"I said I'm sorry, okay?"

"Thorry doethn't bring people back to life,"

"Neither does moping endlessly about them,"

"Fuck you. Thhe was my friend, you know that,"

"You realise she had a crush on you, right?" Vriska said with a devilish grin.

Sollux snorted, "Rumours,"

"Nope, they were true. Tavros told me,"

They continued for a while in silence, Vriska taking in the open flat grassland ahead. She could already hear the wind whipping across the flats, and pouted at the thought of having to cross it.

"How do I know you're not just lying about this as well?" Sollux said in a low voice, and Vriska realised she has not had a good fight since she was Eridan's kismesis. In truth, Aradia's death was not something she was particularly proud of, but if she wanted a fight with Sollux then bringing it into conversation would be the easiest way to wind him up.

"You have to wonder what the poor girl must have been thinking when the boy she loved suddenly killed her," Vriska drawled, running her fingers along the tree trunks as they walked. Suddenly she was grabbed, Sollux's hands on her shoulders as he pushed her against the cliff face rising up to their left.

"What are you trying to do?" he asked, eyebrows furrowed behind his glasses. Vriska attempted to taunt him more, but he shook her. "What are you trying to do?"

"I'm clearly trying to wind you up, shit for brains!" she growled, trying to shake him off, but failing. Damn, he was strong. For a second her mind then panicked, and she wondered what he was going to do to her, but she then decided that it would be out of character for him to do anything that nasty to her. She hoped. After another attempt to wriggle out of his grasp, she sighed, "You're hurting me, Sollux,"

When he faltered, she shoved him off, then knocked him off his feet and pinned him to the ground.

"Athhole!" snapped Sollux. "What do you want from me?"

"I'm bored! I want a bit of fun!" she smirked.

"Ithn't that what Eridan wath for?"

"I dumped him,"

"Doeth he know that though?"

"That... that's none of your business!" she pouted.

"Why are you doing thith, Vrithka? We were getting along again, do you really wanna ruin that?" He seemed calm, but Vriska could tell that he was about to snap. She had forgotten how much fun it was to fight.

"I'm bored, can't you tell? We've been walking for days with nothing happen, and you're bored too!"

"What about Tavroth? I thought you two were going out or whatever the fuck you'd call a relationthhip,"

"We're trolls, we're supposed to have relationships in two quadrants."

"We're humanth!"

"Don't you know anything about science? There's no way so many people would have such similar mutations. And definitely not with all these weird powers,"

"Thince when were you a biologitht? You were thirteen when you latht had a thcience lethon," said Sollux. "We're humanth, and all thith kithmethith bullthhit ith jutht an excuthe for you to get around and be aggrethive,"

"You take that back! I thought you were crushing black on Eridan anyway,"

"He may have been but I thure wathn't. He cruthheth on anything that moveth. And why thhould I take that back? It'th true,"

"It's not!"

"It ith,"

"Not!" Vriska grinned with a smile that was all teeth and fangs, before digging her nails into the tender flesh on his shoulders.

With a roar Sollux pushed Vriska back off him and got up, pulling her to her feet and pinning her to the cave wall again, this time with his hands wrapped about her neck.

"Ith thith what you want, Vrithka?" he murmured in her ear, as he tightened his grip. "You want me to kill you?"

Panic flashed in her eyes.

"I wanted to kill you after you made me kill Aradia, you know," he said, his grip on her neck getting tighter.

"This isn't what kismesis do, you fucking idiot," she wheezed, and kneed him hard in the crotch, before dragging her claws down his back hard enough to break the skin, leaving eight long, red lines down his back. The combination of both made him let go as he swore loudly, and she dashed off towards the flats. "Why won't you just believe me about the Psiioniic!"

"Ith that what thith ith about?" he shouted, barrelling after her.

"Maybe," she laughed, ducking under his blows, and dodging the optic blasts.

"You're a fucking bitch, you know? Maybe if you didn't lie all the time people would believe you!"

"But that's no fun!"

She danced about him, getting him more and more wound up until he engaged her in proper hand to hand combat. Both were good at it, for the Handmaid had taught them both and she was simply the best at it.

For ten minutes they fought, until their limbs grew heavy and their skin glistened with sweat that was soon blown off by the strong winds. The aforementioned strong winds were Vriska's downfall, as her hair kept getting in her face resulting in a large number of small blows to her body.

Fuck it, there was no way she was going to lose to Sollux of all people. He was a weedy nerd! With an unintelligible battle cry, she put her all into leaping forwards and wrapping her arms around Sollux's neck, making him fall to the ground, and pulled her down with him. At first they fought and struggled about more, until to her surprise, Sollux leant down and bit her hard on the neck over and over until her skin was covered in dark angry bruises. The bites slowly became kisses as he continued to press his warm face up against her neck, a pleasant contrast to the bitterly cold wind. Just as she had begun to relax in his arms, he ran his hand up the front of her vest and dug his claws into the soft skin of her stomach, making her wince and push him off, before returning the favour by pinning him down to the floor and burying her face into his neck to alternate between aggressive bites and somewhat soft kisses to brush away the blood.

Upon noticing him snorting, she pulled him up so they were seated alongside one another, and glared at him. "Why are you giggling?"

"Those kitheth tickle," he said. "Lookth like you're the one who doethn't know anything about being a kithmethith,"

"Fuck you! I know more than anyone!" snarled Vriska, before she grabbed Sollux by the back of the head and mashed her lips into his, both biting the others lip and ripping skin open with nails until the kiss relaxed.

One of Vriska's hands cradled the back of the low blood's head, and the other looped around his waist to pull him closer. Like with Tavros, there was an air of warmth and comfort about him, and she wanted to be as close as possible to that. Then his hands moved up to massage the base of one of her horns, and she all but melted into him.

Eventually they rested their forheads together, breathing heavily with arms wrapped close around the others waist, and the kiss stopped.

"That... that was weird," Vriska murmured.

"That'th what you wanted wathn't it?" he replied, voice low and huskier than normal, sending a small shiver through her core.

She rested her head against the crook of his neck and hugged his body closer. "I thought we would be good kismesis, but this just feels weird,"

"Tried to warn you," he snorted, resulting in a light punch to the shoulder. "Hah! You've gone thoft,"

"No I've not!" she shrieked, and Sollux was worried she would kiss him again, but instead she sighed. "Shall we agree to keep that between ourselves?"

Sollux gave her a confused look, "Vrithka, I've got to tell Ff. Thhe hath the right to know if I've been making out with other girlth. I know whatever you've got with Tv has only just begun so it'th not ath bad, but me and Ff have been together for a while now and I really love her,"

"I made a mistake, I know that. I just don't see why both our relationships should suffer because I made a mistake that isn't going to happen again,"

"Aww, you don't want to kith me again? I'm hurt!"

"Fuck off, asshole, you know that's not what I meant," Vriska smirked, then flicked her hair over her shoulder and tried her best to look disinterested. "It's a shame we don't have the chemistry for a kismesis though; you're hot when you're pissed,"

"Eathy girl," Sollux laughed as he stood, then offered a hand to Vriska. "We're better ath friendth,"

Friends. It had a nice ring to it.

"If you're my friend, you now have an obligation to stop me doing stupid shit, you realise that right?"

"Vrithka, are you for fucking real? You're pale flirting with me not ten minuteth after we were having the blacketht of thmoocheth?" Sollux laughed, and noticed that under Vriska's haughtyness and denials, a hint of blue brushed over her cheeks. "You really want to be moirails?"

"I want you in a quadrant, okay?" she snapped. "I hate to admit it, but you're a good guy,"

"Well, I'm gonna go pee. We can talk about moirailth after that. Be right back,"

He ambled off back into the forest as Vriska went and picked up their bags.

Now she was alone, a witness who had previously been observing silently from the bushes strode towards her.

"Vriska Serket," said a furious sounding voice. The girl turned and found herself face to face with a strange robot... Aradia?

"Is that you, Aradia?" she asked, dumbfounded, then noticed the wickedly sharp looking scrap of metal the robot held, and her eyes grew wide. "_SO_-mpf,"

As the cerulean blood cried out for help, Aradia grabbed her and put a hand to her mouth, before lifting her up and dragging her a good distance from the gold blood.

"You have the gall to ask Sollux to be your moirail?" she snarled. "After all the pain you caused 'im?"

Vriska tried in vain to bite the hand before her mouth, but her teeth found only a resistant plastic.

"I know what you did," Aradiabot said as she dragged the girl away from where Sollux was. "You killed and ate people. Is there no end to your disgusting behaviour?"

Ate people? Vriska could have sworn she had never cannibalised anyone. That was more of a thing for Gamzee's blood caste.

"Don't bother denying it. One of your many victims told me. When you siphoned and the victim died you ate them,"

Vriska's eyes grew wide. There always was an abundance of fresh meat after a victim died, but her mother always brushed it off as having money for meat again... in fact they only ever ate meat after a death...

Ohgodohgodohgod.

Spidermum always invited the family friends round after such kills as well to share out the extravagant meals they prepared. Fuck.

"And let's not forget 'ow you broke Tavros' spine and gloated about it, and then terrorised the poor boy in all 'is years 'ere," Aradia said, her voice getting more strongly accented as her anger increased. "And of course, you murdered me in front of everyone else, using poor Sollux to do so! Do you know 'ow many sleepless nights 'e 'ad? C'est degoutant!"

The maroon blood then began to scream at Vriska in French, shouting words Vriska mostly did not understand, though she got the gist of what was being said.

Suddenly Vriska found herself pinned to the ground again, only this time it was not black flirting. Aradia then took the scrap metal blade and stabbed it into Vriska's hand then down into the ground, and removed another four knives, stabbing her other hand and her two feet into the ground in a similar fashion. Once Vriska was violently biting her lip to prevent giving Aradia the satisfaction of her crying (and failing) the robot took her hand away from the cerulean blood's mouth.

Immediately, Vriska began to shriek and call for Sollux, as she found out quickly that Aradiabot could not be controlled mentally. No reply came though.

"What are these?" Aradia asked as she took in all the love bites on Vriska's neck and shoulders.

"S-Sollux gave them to... to me," Vriska choked out between the pain and tears, still wanting to wind up the girl even as she was about to be killed. "Didn't y-ou see us-s-s, hav-ving the dark-kest of s-smooches?"

Aradia gave her a disgusted look.

"JJ-jealous... are we?" grinned the high blood. "That hot piece of ass is already t-taken-" At this point, Aradia smacked Vriska about the face. "JEEZ WHAT THE FUCK?"

"He'd never take you of all people in a quadrant, you lie,"

"When did I s-say it was me? He's in love with Feferi! You're a f-f-fucking robot, and even if you weren't you dont have a chance with him, so let's keep Sollux out of this,"

Vriska could have sworn the robot's porcelain face somehow got paler.

"Like you did?" Aradia frowned, then took her final knife and slowly pushed up her top, making a frustrated noise at all the angry cuts and scratches already in existence on her body.

"Sol roughed me up bad already, t-theres nothing more you can do so just fuck off ba-ck-ck to wherever you came f-from," Vriska coughed, and at Aradia's sneer of distaste, said, "He's a great kisser, though you wouldn't know of course. Alm-most as good as Tavr-"

"What?" Aradia roared, stabbing the knife into Vriska's arm and twisting it until it found bone. "How dare you lay a finger on Tavros!"

Vriska screamed at the top of her lungs at the pain, shouting for help or for Sollux.

"Even as you are at the mercy of someone for your life, you still belittle and mock them. Are you stupid, or can you just not help it?"

"C-can't hh-h-h-help it," stammered Vriska through gritted teeth. "Sollux will be here any minute and you'll be fried,"

"Why would 'e give a fuck about you?"

"Did y-y-you not s-see all the loveb-bites on my neck?" Vriska grinned weakly. Tavros was a sorespot for Aradia, so she would avoid mentioning him, but talking about Sollux captured the mad robot's attention, and if she wanted to put off more pain then she would gladly exaggerate or indeed fabricate aspects their relationship. "We escaped from the retainment organisation t-together and ever since we-we've been switching between flushed and black,"

"I thought you said 'e was in love with Feferi!" Aradia snarled, running her knife along the scratches Sollux left, cutting them just deep enough to rupture the muscle.

"AAAAARGH, SOLLUX! HELP, SOLLUX!" Vriska screamed, before sobbing. "I lied okay! I was trying to wind you up. He barely talks to her, I'm sorry!"

Aradia was silent for a wwhile, then said, "Sollux likes... you? He would chose a violent, disgusting person over literally anyone else? He chose the girl who murdered me as his matesprite?"

The robot straightened out her spine, and stared out into the distance, hair whipping about her face as Vriska screamed and screamed for Sollux.

"Enough," she said finally, and picked up the knife for a final time. "You killed through letting your victims bleed to death, and thus that is 'ow you will die. But I will allow you a kindness, as you gave one to me when I died when you put me out of my misery. I will paralyse you from the waist down, so you will not feel all,"

Putting all her remaining energy into one last attempt at being saved, Vriska screamed at the top of her lungs, but still no reaction; Aradia must have pulled her far away from him. The snapping of Vriska's back was a quick affair, and Vriska scarsely had any time to process what had happened before the robot was hovering over her once more and creating rows upon rows of cuts up her arms and legs. But she could not feel her legs.

Vriska did not want to die, she was scared.

As more blood drained out her cries for help grew weaker and weaker, until Aradia stopped her cuts, and stood back to examine her work.

Suddenly, an optic blast knocked the robot back, and Sollux came barrelling towards her. Vriska just about made out that they were having a heated conversation before Aradiabot left.

"Vrithka? Fuck," the boy swore, before pulling out some bandages and beginning the lengthy process of covering her wounds. "Don't worry, I'm here, I've got you,"

Reality kicked back in, and forced her eyelids to open, and her eyes focussed in on Aradiabot carving more lines her legs. Sollux had not come at all, she had been hallucinating.

"Well, that is enough. Goodbye Vriska. I hope you enjoyed your life," the maroon blood said, before jumping into the air and flying off.

Coughing, Vriska pulled her upper half up into a seated position and looked down at what had once been her legs, then promptly vomited up the meagre meal she had left. She was thankful for the lack of sensation felt in them, but fuck there was blue everywhere.

"Vriska!" Her mind was playing tricks on her again, as she imagined Tavros' voice whispering sweet nothings to her and saying that she would be okay.

The pain was unbearable, and every movement caused more blood to drain out.

She was to die alone, and the thought terrified her. Moving or shouting for help was not an option, and so she lay down again, tears running down her face.

This was it.

The more blood she lost, the more her mind wandered, though through the hallucinations her body refused to stop rubbing in that she was utterly alone.

_'You pushed everyone away, what did you expect_?' she reminded herself, and she bitterly regretted not making more bridges in her short life.

Her final thought was a single wish.

'Please don't let me die alone.'

The wish went unanswered.

* * *

><p>Vriska Serket is now dead.<p>

End of Part Three.

**== Continue onwards to the Condesce's reign**

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** And on that happy note, hello! Happy Easter everyone too haha

I was going to cut this story short but its so damn long already I may as well keep going! There will be about ten more chapters (maybe more idk) to this story.

This was late because I've been working on my militarystuck Vriska cosplay for a con, and she's so fun to cosplay aaa!

Also I've pretty much decided what I'll be doing for the cover now, but as always if anyone has any ideas feel free to let me know uwu that could take a while to finish though, as I've been putting off uni work a bit to write this so I need to do that haha :s

Thank you for reading as always! 380


	31. In which strange events are revealed

**== Shit, be Sollux when he finds Vriska!**

"_Vrithka_!" Sollux shouted as he wandered about. The girl had walked off somewhere, presumably embarrassed over their fight/make-out session/heart to heart, or so he thought anyway. "_You've done way worthe, I'm only judging you a bit_!"  
>After ten minutes of walking, he began to get concerned, and traced his steps back to the edge of the forest where they had parted ways. Tracking had never been his forte; mostly because his glasses somewhat obscured his vision, and while he was much better at containing the optic blasts now, he still did not want to risk removing them. For another while he saw nothing of use, only the slightly trampled grass where they had fought... of course, he had not left her at the forest at all! Idiot, he told himself.<br>A little further ahead was the spot where he had really left her. He called again, "_Vrithka_!"  
>He paced about the site until he noticed something suspicious: drag marks. This did not look good, and without another thought, Sollux began to sprint, following the drag marks. Whoever it was being towed along, they clearly did not want to leave. The heels of the shoe were dug deep into the ground, occasionally coming up, presumably to attempt to kick whomever was dragging. A few shrubs had been pulled up or stripped of their leaves as well, and on these a small amount of blood.<br>Bright cerulean blood.  
>"<em>VRITHKA<em>!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. After five minutes of sprinting he saw a body. Vriska's. He dropped to his knees, before frantically taking her pulse, but there was nothing.  
>Nearly all her skin and clothes were saturated with her blood, and her eyes were still open, face contorted into an expression of utter fear and hopelessness.<br>A few months ago, Sollux would have welcomed the scene with open arms, hell, he would have even spat on her and announced 'good riddance'... but not anymore. If Tavros could see good in her, then Sollux decided that despite her heartless bitchy exterior, he would give a shot at being her moirail. After all, he knew better than anyone the damage she could cause if she was allowed to run about uninhibited.  
>But not anymore. She was dead, and there was no way she would be coming back. No more games or tricks or meddlings. Vriska was gone.<br>Sollux removed the shards of metal holding her limbs down and examined them. At first he had assumed one of the Condesce's underlings had found and killed her, but that did not seem to be the case, for they killed with bullets, and the Condesce wanted her alive anyway. Perhaps it was an enemy she had made when she was human, but that was unlikely, for they would not recognise her. A human who had just seen a mutant and wanted to attack? Unlikely again, for there was malice in this attack, though having said that there were doubtlessly huge numbers of people who had lost families and friends to the Condesce and would be more than happy to take it out on the first mutant they saw.  
>Upon further examination of the body, he found that her back had been snapped, which was a very specific wound to cause, and one that made little sense. He cast his mind to any trolls who had a vendetta against Vriska, and chuckled darkly, for that was basically all of them.<br>Only three candidates made sense from the trolls: Terezi, Gamzee... and Aradia. Yet Aradia was dead, so she could be removed from the list. Terezi 'dealt justice' against Vriska at the fights for Vriska was no longer the girl she had once known, having become more violent and cruel. Gamzee, well he had been in love with Tavros, and upon finding out that Vriska had been the one to both torment him and capture his affections, well Sollux had only heard rumours but what he had heard was not pretty. That had been one of many reasons that Vriska was kept hidden away from the other mutants.  
>Of course, Tavros himself could have harboured a grudge, but that seemed unlikely as he had forgiven her to Sollux's knowledge.<br>The cuts on her body seemed random at first, but he soon noticed a pattern to some of them. Along major bloodlines were smaller punctures to the skin, and in very specific locations. As a gold blood he was well aquainted to siphoning, as people of his cast were frequently targeted. Their blood was touted as boosting intelligence, tasting great (the hell) and if used correctly would give the drinker the ability to see the future for short periods of time. Gold bloods were targeted the most by siphoners along with olive bloods, and as such he recognised the signs well, but did not know what it meant. He had overheard Vriska telling Tavros that she used to siphon, but it was clear no one else would have known of that, and thus he grew even more confused.  
>It was looking like Tavros had the knowledge for all the attacks, as no one else knew about the siphoning, but lacked the want to kill her.<br>Sollux sighed. There was no use deliberating over this; Vriska was dead and he would never know who did it. The girl was by no means light, even though she had lost almost all of her blood, but he was determined to at least try to make some sort of grave for her; it was the least he could do after they sort of became moirails, and besides, it would be what Tavros would want.  
>Eventually, he got her a dozen metres from the edge of the forest, then went in to collect branches and young trees, weaving them into a low hanging hut of sorts. Sollux wiped the blood off her the best he could, before folding her into a foetal position and placed the woven hut over her. Hopefully it would allow her body some peace before it began to get torn apart by scavengers.<br>After picking up his bag, he then left, refusing to get overly emotional when he still had a while longer to travel.

* * *

><p><strong>A week later.<strong>  
>"This is Gihney Reyuok, reporting from Tain Falls, a town just on the border of an unexplainable phenomena that has been causing an immense stir. Now sometime yesterday morning, everyone who has crossed too far into the grassland to the east of this town have fallen into a deep unrousable slumber. Rescue efforts involving rope have been successful, but only if the victim was close to the boundary when they were affected by whatever this is, with a 90% chance of them waking after.<br>'Here we have a brother of one of the victims and lead of the rescue operations with us. Please tell us what we know so far, Mr Gurreu."  
>"Well we've tried gas masks, biohazard suits... uhh, just plain holding our breaths, hell, even tin foil hats! But none have been able to return. Now, we've now been experimenting with what little robotics we still have left but unfortunately we haven't got anything larger than a drone,"<br>"So you're going to be trying to find the root of this, this event?"  
>"Hopefully, ma'am. We have been able to get within about 100 metres of the centre of the fallout zone though,"<br>"And what did you see?"  
>"Well that's the darnedest thing, ma'am. It looks almost like there's some sort of, uhh, massive cocoon out there, just on the borders of the forest. Now, what we may be able to do is bomb it with these drones, but at the end of the day these are all just toys and won't make it that far, so we're experimenting still,"<br>"Have you spoke to any experts on cocoons?"  
>"Yes, we were very lucky to have a bug scientist living in out village, though she said that the cocoon was like nothing she had seen before,"<br>"Do you have any images?"  
>"Of course,"<br>"Okay, so for our listeners at home, this can best be described as a large round cocoon, it looks almost like a spider's egg case, and on the side are what appear to be a pair of eye spots, presumably to warn off predators, and size wise it appears to be about one metre tall, and one and a half metres for both width and length, I've just been informed. Now then, how... what? Oh God, the border is expanding FUC-"  
>Krrrshtttttttt.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>== Wait... Vriska isn't dead is she?<strong>  
>Error: requesting information about deaths is not permitted.<br>**== Yeah yeah. Ummm, be the Handmaid!**  
>You cannot be the Handmaid, but you can follow her about.<br>**== But that's the same thing?!**  
>You are now following the Handmaid, who has been ordered to report to the hall.<br>Initially the maroon blood was confused at her orders. Due to her future self helping some of the mutants to escape, and another one of her copy's inability to bring out a pair of human's powers, the Handmaid tended to be confined to her cell, with the exception of exercise sessions twice a day with the Condesce. Reporting to the hall was not something she had to do since before all the mess, which meant one of two possibilities: the Condesce had forgiven her (very unlikely), or that there were more mutants to train and the sea witch did not have anyone else to do the job. After all, no one could defeat the Handmaid in a training-new-recruits-off. She was simply the best there was.  
>Thus, here she was, stood with her back against the wall in the food court next to the other tutors and the head of security, waiting for the Condesce.<br>The remaining mutants from the original twelve sat close together somewhat miserably around a single table. Only Terezi, Kanaya and Gamzee were left, though Gamzee was left in the Condesce's chambers for the protection of the non purple blooded mutants.  
>Suddenly, the doors burst open as the Condesce swaggered in, followed by Doc Scratch and a cluster of mutants. She took her place behind the podium and waited for the trolls to take their seats. It was then when the Handmaid noticed a strong flush on the empress' cheeks, the bruises and the scratch marks all over her shoulders, neck and back, and she pulled a face. The idea that someone would want to even talk to a rogue purple blood let alone sleep with one was completely beyond the Handmaid. And to have clearly been engaging in... something... right before a talk was as unprofessional as it got. Urgh. No wonder the Condesce had been late.<br>"Good evening. I would not usually address you personally like this, but I have exciting news. First, it is my pleasure to introduce six new mutants to take the place of those lost. As you may or may not be aware, Mr Zahhak and Ms Leijon perished in the floods, along with Mr Vantas, Mr Ampora and Ms Peixes being killed by the humans after being caught. As for Captor, Serket and Nitram, we have a good idea on their location, so we should have them caught and returned soon.  
>'To replace these deaths, we have Meenah, Cronus, Horuss, Meulin, Mituna and Rufioh. The new teams are as follows: Team One: Terezi and Rufioh. Team Two: Kanaya, Meenah and Cronus. Team Three, Gamzee, Horuss and Meulin. Each team has been assigned one original mutant to help the new mutants with life here. As for you, Mituna, meet me after this talk; I have something special in mind for you," the Condesce said with a smile that did little to placate those in the room.<br>The Handmaid recognised the tyrian seadweller from the creepy vehicle the Condesce had taken her to. Presumably these were all the mutants or whatever they were that she had been able to salvage.  
>'Next, is that we are all going to be moving to a new base," With a wave of her hand, the projector turned on, showing an enormous glass building jutting out of the ocean in a somehow obnoxious manner. Though the Handmaid would not know, Terezi was thinking to herself how similar it looked to the American base they visited, and then blunk back tears as she remembered that her team mates for that mission had both died. There was time for tears later, in private.<br>"All underwater floors will be for any refugees who come, should they decide to surrender to me. All those abovewater are the replacements for this building. You are all my guests of honour, and as such you will be living right below my suite, where I can keep a better eye on you. I shall be creating another flood, one that will rid humans of even more landmass so we should have plenty of followers to help wipe out the last remains of humanity.  
>'The move will be taking place in an hour, so get your personal belongings together and wait in your sleeping quarters for an errand boy to escort you to your plane, of course, this only applies to those who have such things."<br>The Condesce then turned to the three tutors behind, and told each of their group, informing them to escourt the new to the plane.  
>"Group one, excluding Terezi, to me," called the Handmaid. Before her was a boy about her current age at seventeen. "Oh, of course, only one 'a you. I'm the Handmaid, and I'm your trainer,"<br>"Uh, I'm Rufioh. Do... do we have to pretend like we don't know each other, Damara?"  
>"Well not to sound like a joker, but this is genuinely the first I've seen a' your lot," said the Handmaid with a frown. "So you can stop that from eatin' you,"<br>"Right,"  
>The name Damara did sound oddly familiar, but she had been called the Handmaid all her life. How bizarre. Making a mental note to quiz the boy later, the maroon blood then led him the plane.<br>He seemed intent on avoiding all eye contact with her throughout the walk, and once they were outside waiting for Terezi and Kanaya it only became more pronounced.  
>"Is something the matter, kid?" she aasked, but was met with an awkward silence. "Suit yourself,"<br>The plane journey to the new base was equally awkward, even with the addition of Terezi, for it was clear she was doing her best to avoid breaking down into tears. While there were many things the Handmaid was good at, comforting people was not one of them, or not at this age anyway. The other teams were talking amongst themselves, with the exception of Kanaya, who quickly took a seat beside Terezi before they began murmuring softly to one another.  
>Though she would liked to have seen this new base that they were moving to, all windows on the plane had been covered up and as such the Handmaid had not a clue where she was going. Disappointing. How would she knew which direction to escape now?<br>A future version of her had done so, but that was when they had been situated in the US. Escaping this new base without a boat would be impossible... Damn.  
>The Handmaid rested her face in her hands and pouted subconsciously. '<em>At least I know I escape in the future. Though I have no idea how...<em>'  
>After an hour of flight, most of the new trolls fell asleep, with the exception of the fushia blood. Putting this down to their recent 'birth' from the weird machine the Condesce had, the Handmaid turned to Meenah.<br>"Hey, mini Condesce?"  
>"Me?"<br>"Yeah. How d'you end up in that machine, if you don't mind me askin',"  
>"Nice try, but I've been forbidden to tell anyone about that upon pain of death. The boss has even implanted something into me so she can listen in at all times. And this collar ain't just for show either. It'll shock me. Glubbin' weird but what can you do,"<br>"Huh, okay then. Guessin' you don't feel as doggone tired as the rest of you machine babies,"  
>"Nope, did my time for that post wake up nap a while back. Worked well for me," Meenah smirked, splitting her hair into two chunks. Then, she began the process of braiding what she had left, as the Condesce had ordered it cut to her mid back.<br>"Ain't that the cat's pajamas," the Handmaid smiled, clutching her knees close to her chest. Something about the girl felt familiar, and she welcomed any chance of knowing who she was and where she came from.  
><strong>== Who even is the Handmaid?<strong>  
>You are not permitted to know.<br>**== Oh come on! Please!**

**== Reminisce about tragic past**  
>The Handmaid thought back to her childhood. It was not something she dwelled upon often, deciding that keeping the past in the past would be best for her, but something about Meenah seemed to trigger old memories in her.<br>Her earliest memory was-!  
>Suddenly, the plane jolted down into a rough landing, and the new trolls were jolted awake violently, some shouting out in confusion and fear.<br>"Stay calm everyone," the Handmaid shouted. "This is just how the plane lands. It's old,"  
>Sure enough the door opened and they filed out, some a little shakily. One of the new kids vomited over the side of the building, Horuss, she believed. The Handmaid wrinkled her nose but said nothing.<br>"So, uhh, how come you were in the plane with us, and not the rest of the staff?" Ruhioh asked as they waited for an errand boy.  
>"Someone had to watch over you kids," she replied absentmindedly, keeping an eye out for the staff's arrival.<br>"You're barely older than the rest of us," Meenah snorted. "You're a prisoner as well, right?"  
>"Drop it, bearcat," replied the Handmaid. "I'm in charge here,"<br>"No you're not, or you wouldn't be getting so angry and flushed!"  
>"Oh stop being a gimlet!"<br>"A what?" Rufioh said.  
>"A bore. Just be quiet, or I'll have half a mind to throw y'all into the sea,"<br>"Excuse me," said the serene voice of an errand boy. The Handmaid had never been so pleased to see one; it always pissed her off when her students realised that she was as much of a prisoner as they were. "I'm here to show you to your rooms,"  
>"About damn time," the rust blood muttered before talking in a louder tone. "Follow me, kids,"<p>

* * *

><p><strong>== So we don't get to hear her tragic back story?<strong>  
>Not today.<br>**== Okay then. Well... is Eridan okay? Let's be him!**  
>You are now Eridan Ampora and your body is full to the brim with an awful cocktail of drugs.<br>When Eridan awoke, he could feel the tension hanging thick in the air, and a glance at the window to his left revealed that he was still placed far beneath the surface of the ocean. A haze fogged over his mind and body, possibly the result of drugs, with the only part of his body in focus being the stab wound on his leg, which seemed to pulse painfully.  
>The trio of soldiers in the room noticed his waking, and instantly marched over, untying him from the bed and instead handcuffing his hands, as Eridan was too out of it to fight back. He was strapped into a wheelchair, then pushed out of the room by one soldier, the other two standing in front, and behind him. Due to being so slumped forwards the mutant saw barely any of their journey, instead seeing only his gown clad lap.<br>"I'm surprised you still have that streak in your hair," commented the soldier pushing him. "Thought you'd have gotten rid of it once you left your career as a teen hearthrob and began fighting for that insane leader of your organisation,"  
>"It makes him look like such a stereotypical villain though, that'll be why. He always was obsessed with his looks wasn't he?" the guard in front of them suggested. "How you manage to bleach and dye your hair is beyond me though,"<br>"Sa mutshn," he murmured, slurring his words heavily.  
>"A mutation? As if a mutation would give you a little purple hair streak!"<br>"Enough!" barked the guard at the back. "We're not here to chat,"  
>The corridors fell silent once more.<br>"We're not supposed to chat _but_ I've got to know what on earth is going on with his horns," sighed the guard pushing him. "Are they real or what? It makes no sense for the same species to all get different horns,"  
>"Real," he managed.<br>"I don't believe that for a second!"  
>Eridan was vaguely aware of the guard talking at great length about the science behind horns, but it was too much for his drugged brain to understand so he blanked out after a matter of seconds.<br>The chair stopped.  
>"Excuse me! I'll be taking him from here on out," a new voice said. He heard shuffling before the chair began to be pushed once more. "Eridan, isn't it? I heard about your leg, you poor thing. Hopefully the drugs are taking the edge off that. Let me know if you need anything when we get to our destination, okay sweetie?"<br>"Wus goin n?" he slurred.  
>"Someone very important wants to speak to you, flower," the woman pushing him replied. "Don't be scared though, she won't hurt you,"<br>Eridan managed a snort, before noticing all the strange huffing sounds coming from behind him.  
>"Wasat nois?"<br>"Hm? Oh, don't worry about it, everything will make sense when you meet her, my lovely," This mini pep talk was accompanied by the woman giving his hair a quick stroke, as if to calm him. It was too weird. "Ah! Here we are. Hang on just... a second... there!"  
>The sound of a door opening filled his ears, before the comforting sounds of a fireplace replaced it, and a warm amber glow lit him. With a considerable amount of effort he lifted his head up to see into the room, and saw none other than... the Condesce?<br>"E-ridan!" she sang joyfully, and rushed up to enclose him in a tight hug. "I'm so shore-y about all that happened. We couldn't risk her knowing that you were anyfin more than a prisoner here until you went under the knife to get those horrid implants removed,"  
>This was not the Condesce.<br>"F-Fef?" he asked, before she pulled back and he got a good look at the woman's face, and suddenly there was no doubt it was his childhood friend. " Fef! Thought you wer ded, prncess"  
>"Oh dear, you're still so drowsy from the medic-ocean. That's to be expected, you've been sleeping for a good week!" Feferi frowned. "Su, is there any chance you cod help him with that?"<br>"Of course my dear, he's not going to try and kill anyone now, are you, pet?" the woman who pushed him in smiled, before leaving the room.  
>"Whozat?"<br>"That is Supura Pyrope, one of the highest renowned lawyers in the UK. Terezi's mother. She and Terezi have been communicating psychically for years now, and the informa-shore-n she has given us has been invaluable. Unfort-shore-nately Terezi cannot know that her mother has been working to free her for years, as the Condesce would take it out on her," Feferi said while absentmindedly playing with her hair. "But that's not why you're here. I'll explain all that when Su gets back with somefin for your drowsiness."  
>After five minutes of one sided small talk, Terezi's mother returned with a nurse, who injected what was presumably another drug to lessen the effects of whatever had been slugging about in his veins. After a few more minutes, his head fully cleared, and he sat up straight in his chair.<br>"I don't knoww wwhat you wwere feedin' me for the pain, but it wwas total owerkill wwhatewer it wwas,"  
>"Pff!" Feferi quickly covered her mouth with a hand as she began to giggle. "How is your accent still so thick?"<br>Eridan shrugged, a small pout on his face before asking, "So howw come you're not a prisoner? I.. I heard your screamin' before the coms cut. Fef, wwe all thought you wwere dead."  
>At this, Feferi frowned, and Eridan knew she meant business, which meant no fish puns. A welcome change, though hearing all the silly puns did make him feel at ease again.<br>"I imagine that's exactly what the Condesce would want you to think! Apparently she told Terezi today that you and Karkat died on this mission. Those screams you heard were genuine though, I thought I was going to die when they caught me, and then I woke up about a day later, out of it like you were, but in an interrogation room. They asked me all sorts of questions, and... I just told them everything. Some of the guards clearly held resentment against me for my mutation, and many still do, but the interrogator was amazing. She was so patient and kind, she let me have time for my head to clear, and didn't, you know, hold me accountable for all that has happened.  
>'Once I told her what had really happened, she took me in for a personal meeting with the US president, and I told him what I told her and he decided that he trusted me."<br>"Yeah wwell they _wwould_ trust you ower me wwouldn't they!"  
>"Whale you're not exactly known for your kind and gentle personality, sunshine," replied Feferi with a roll of her eyes. "Anyway, the reason you're here is because we're hatching up a plan. Our knowledge of how the Condesce and her armies work is going to be used by the humans to fight back for this planet, before we lose even more landmass.<br>'There are rumours that the Condesce is making an enormous floating city to harbor all the refugees, and we have managed to find the location of it. She's using those poor little carapace people to do all the labour on it, but it's almost done, or so we can tell. But that isn't the worst bit at all! She's going to release another flood. I guess there was another icecap we didn't know about, but regardless, she plans to use this as a means of getting refugees to travel to her base if they fight for her,"  
>"Right... so wwhat do wwe do? Wwe're of no use anymore, wwe hawen't got any inside information now,"<br>"A pair of seadwellers is always useful. Plus if needed we can always return to the Condesce as if we escaped,"  
>"She wwould never buy that, princess,"<br>"She's grown even more cocky than usual. You'd be surprised,"  
>"And wwhat about Kar? He's not a seadwweller. Speakin' a' wwhich, wwhere is he? I assumed he'd be here wwith us,"<br>"He's still recovering from the operation to remove all the listening devices. He's really tired, but he should be round in a few hours. He's barely slept at all the past month, from what we can tell,"  
>Eridan snorted, "Sounds right. No wonder he's always so crabby,"<br>"Maybe that's why he's codename cancer," Feferi suggested with a sly smile. "Anyway, enough beach-ing about Karcrab- oops! Karkat. Enough beach-ing about _Karkat_, we have more to talk about,"  
>"Like wwhat?"<br>"Have you heard more information about team eight?"  
>"You mean more information about Sollux? No, I hawen't,"<br>Feferi flushed angrily, "I meant all of them!"  
>"She is asking on my behalf too. I knew Vriska when she was a child," Ms Pyrope said, interrupting the seadwellers. "She was childhood friends with my Terezi. They used to be so sweet together! Oh, you would not believe it knowing how Vriska is now, but she was the <em>cutest<em> little thing before she hit the dreaded teens. I'd always find them in the garden together, hunting down millipedes and spiders so they could keep them as the pet of the day. They even insisted on wearing matching little outfits on non uniform days to pretend they were twins,"  
>Eridan just listened to the woman with his mouth agape, "This... are you sure you're talkin' about Wriska Serket here?"<br>"Quite sure! Oh, I should have brought my photo albums! They were utterly precious. It breaks my heart to know that my poor Terezi is out all alone and scared in that awful place, but knowing that the little girl I knew could be... well, in an even worse situation somewhere,"  
>"Ter wwon't be alone. Kanaya, a jade blood, is still wwith her, and I'd trust Kan wwith my life. So you don't need to wworry about howw Ter is alone," Eridan said, hoping he could put the saccharine woman at ease. He then wondered how a blind woman could take photos, but decided that Terezi's weird skill of smelling and tasting colours had to come from somewhere. "So, uh, wwhen you say they wwore matchin' outfits, wwhat do you mean by that?"<br>"Oh!" cried Ms Pyrope. " I just remembered, I have a photo on my phone. Of course it's useless now what with all the phone lines being broken, but it's still got a good camera on it. Here, this is from when they were... hmm, seven I think?"  
>The woman passed Eridan her phone. On screen was a picture of two little girls in yellow raincoats and matching oversized wellingtons, both giving enormous grins at the camera, while giving the other bunny ears, thinking they were being subtle. Su was right, they were damn precious.<br>"Me and Tezi had just gotten back from a holiday in Japan to visit my father, and of _course_ it was raining as soon as we got back on English soil! And here's another one when they were both fairies in their year three play,"  
>"Never thought I'd say this about Vriska of all people, but she reel-y is cute! And so is mini Terezi, wow!"<br>"Wwhat wwas Wriska's home life like if you don't mind me askin'?"  
>"Ahh, the poor thing. It was not ideal to say the least. Before Vriska's mother was born, her grandmother had a relationship with a bronze blooded man, and of course back then that was frowned upon and so she was cast out by other high bloods to live in a mid blood district, where she met Vriska's grandfather. Though she was killed along with her partner when Vriska's mother was about fifteen, and it was all downhill after then for Spidermum, as Vriska liked to call her. I met her in one of those support groups for single mothers, when she was about eighteen, and she looked so miserable I knew I had to try and help, but she decided the only way for her was down the more illegal routes, and I could do nothing more for her. If I reported her, Vriska and her sister would have gone into a cerulean care home, though after her mother was arrested for siphoning and murder, well I know now I should have just reported her and fought for the girl's custody,"<br>"You made the best choice with what you knew at the time, Su," Feferi said, resting a hand on the older woman's arm. "I'm sure that Vriska really appreciated all the time she spent with you too! Vriska has made some bad choices as well now, it sounds like she needs you,"  
>"It's just knowing that my inaction resulted in Vriska killing and inadvertedly eating people just... I wish I could make it up to her and her sister, though of course what remains of her family are dead now,"<br>"Hold up. Wwhat?"  
>"Vriska's mother ate the bodies of her victims. I think I must have gone round for roasts at their house a number of times as well. Makes me want to throw up when I think too hard about it. I can only hope poor Vriska doesn't ever find out... This conversation got dark suddenly! Sorry my lovelies,"<br>"So you had Terezi at eighteen too?" Eridan asked before being elbowed in the ribs by an angry Feferi.  
>"No no, I don't mind! I had Terezi in my thirties. I guess all this information is important now. My mother was killed before Spidermum was even born, by Vriska's grandmother,"<br>"Wwait, so all of our ancestors wwere connected?"  
>And thereee it is!" Feferi piped up. "That is what we found out! All our ancestors were linked. And do you know what else we found out? Do you remember that purple blood who stabbed you?"<br>Eridan shuddered at the memory, then said, "Yeah I do. Wwhat about her?"  
>"We found her on a missing persons database. Guess who her cousin is?"<br>At this, the prince put his face in his hands in that typically melodramatic way he had. "Don't tell me it's fuckin' Gamzee, I swwear to God,"  
>"Well I don't know what to say then! But whatever, all of the other children who we... killed, they were our cousins or half siblings. And this was not the first time they did this. Remember the rainbow drinkers when we first arrived? They were another batch of mutants that had to kill like we did, only they got infected by something,"<br>"We have found almost everyone's ancestors, bar Aradia's, Sollux's and Equius'. I don't suppose you would know anything, flower?" Su added.  
>"Wwell, I remember Wriska going on about howw she wwas sure her trainer wwas related to Aradia a number a' times,"<br>"Oh, you knew Vriska well then?" smiled Su brightly. With anyone else, he would have bragged about how they _totally_ slept together every night (leaving out that it was only sleeping next to one another as opposed to sex), how rough their make outs were and so on... but this woman knew Vriska when she was a little girl so that would be damn weird! Feferi shot him one of her impish grins, and he realised he was flushing heavily. "My, are the two of you an item?"  
>"Not anymore. Used to be though,"<br>"Oh! Eridan, you're hungry I bet!" Feferi said suddenly, changing the topic to one less awkward. "We haven't got anything amazing here, but there's a farm of sorts in the middle and higher floors so there's vegetable soup if you want it,"  
>"Uh sure, hit me up,"<br>At that, Feferi got up and left the room for a hunt for soup, before Ms Pyrope began asking how Vriska and Terezi were, how tall they were now, and if they still had lessons on maths, English and science.  
>The pair spoke for a while before a soldier came in carrying a tray with steaming soup and a bread roll on. While it was nothing compared to the food at the Retainment Organisation, it was still heaven sent after not eating for so long. As he ate, Ms Pyrope casually chatted to him, asking about all manner of topics, such as his favourite subjects when he was at school (history of course), what he wanted to be when he was older and such.<br>It was as he was telling the woman about how he would love to be the general of a fleet of ships that Feferi burst in.  
>"They've located Equius and Nepeta!"<br>"Wwhat?"  
>"They've been living in a small town for the past few months. It looks like the locals only just realised that they were mutants, so they're being held in the prison for their safety, as most of the people in the town want to kill them,"<br>"Wwhat are wwe goin' to do about it?"  
>"Rescue them, silly! I couldn't let fronds rot in jail!"<br>"Didn't knoww you wwere friends wwith Equius. Nep, sure, but Equius?"  
>"He's pretty creepy most of the time, but I think he's just shy! Though of course it could be because I'm a fushia blood so he was only being nice because of that. Either way he's not so bad once you get used to him, otherwise Nepeta couldn't stand him!"<br>"Siblin's don't mind that stuff as much though do they? But wwhatewer. Let's bust them out," Eridan sighed, lifting himself out of his chair.  
>"No, neither of us are going. They won't let me because I'm 'special', and you're too weak obviously,"<br>"Surprised you're standin' for that, Fef,"  
>"I don't personally agree with it, no. But they've done a lot for me so I'm letting them have this,"<br>"Wwell so far the only thin' I'we noticed is that our cell is a lot fancier. Doesn't seem at all like they're wwantin' you to be their co-lead or wwhatewer,"  
>"You've been awake for all of two damn hours, you little beach!" pouted Feferi before sticking her tongue out at him. She then added in a serious tone, "Besides, there's a lot more to leading than simply getting your way all the time. Compromise is a huge part of successful leading. Not that you'd know!"<br>"An' wwhat's that supposed to mean?" Eridan replied haughtily.  
>Feferi grinned at him, "That you're a little shellfish!"<p>

* * *

><p><strong>== PFF! Too many bad puns! Be someone else!<strong>  
>You are now Aradiabot, wandering aimlessly though forests and grasslands alike.<br>After the brutal murder of Vriska Serket, Aradiabot knew not what to do with herself. Killing Vriska had been such a driving focal point in her existence for so long that she felt lost. Though it had been little over a week since the event, the robot was still debating on what to do.  
>Was she really a human soul in a robot shell? How could Equius even bring about such a thing? Whatever she was, Aradia grew increasingly concerned at the emotions swimming about in her skull. Sitting before the ocean helped calm her mind, and she spent long passages of time watching the waves, as she had while wondering what to do with the Vriska dilemma.<br>While debating on whether to just walk about on the sea floor for a while, a message appeared, as if there were another voice in her mind, but one that spoke in a dry monotone, as if reading aloud a message.  
>'<em>Aradia, can you hear me? It's Equius<em>.'  
>"Equius?" she said aloud, then added wryly, "What are you doing inside my head? I thought it was my job to do all that stuff!"<br>'_There's no time for humour. Can you meet us at these coordinates_?' he replied, with a location appearing in her mind.  
>"Why should I?"<br>'_We need your help, please Aradia_,'  
>"Fine," she frowned. "Why are you in the middle of the ocean?"<br>'_It's basically a big boat, hurry Aradia! :33_' said another voice that was clearly Nepeta.  
>With a huff, Aradia got into her pre-flight stance, then took off. Thankfully the flight was much shorter than her last one, and after a full days flight she landed on the top of what appeared to be a skyscraper emerging from the waves. The sun was setting in the distance, falling below the endless expanse of water before her, a sight that made her oddly sad.<br>Shortly after her arrival, a trap door in the floor opened up and out of it came Nepeta, Equius and Feferi, the latter of which looking rather shocked.  
>"Aradia, is that really you?" the princess asked.<br>"Feferi! Ah, you look so grown up now, it's been too long," Aradia smiled, feeling more like the girl she used to be after seeing her old friend, and they hugged tightly, the seadweller tearing up until she was flat out crying into the robot's synthetic shoulder.  
>"I can't believe it's reel-ly you! Glub, aaah gosh!" the fuchsia blood laughed. "Sorry about the tears, I'm just so happy to sea you again!"<br>"Me too!  
>"Well it's been, what, three years or some-fin since… you know. You look older too, somehow. I have absolutely no idea how it happened but water-ver he did, Equius did a good job,"<br>"Ahh, thank you, your highness," replied Equius, looking noticeably flustered.  
>"Don't worry about it," Feferi said, before linking her arm through Aradiabot's and all but dragging her into the building with her. The seadweller's strength was surprising, it was not far from Equius' in fact. Perhaps super human strength ran in the highblood's genes. "Come on! We have so much to talk about!"<br>"Feferi, I would love to catch up with you later, but for now I need to talk to Nepeta, please," Aradiabot said with a sheepish expression.  
>"Oh, of course don't worry about it! I'm just glad the three of you are safe. Let one of the guards know when you want to come back inside, and they'll take you to our rooms, kay?"<br>"Merçi, Feferi,"  
>"Well, you didn't die. What's up?" Nepeta asked once Feferi and Equius left.<br>"I killed Vriska,"  
>Nepeta's eyes widened in horror, before she pulled her 'I'm really mad but trying to conceal it' face, which she used often when the three of them were in the Retainment Organisation.<br>"Well, how do you feel now?" the olive-blood replied in a clearly annoyed tone. "Is there meaning to your life now?"  
>"Cut the attitude! You have <em>no idea<em> what I've gone through!"  
>"No idea? My family are all dead, and the only ones still around didn't want me because of my blood caste. But you didn't see me hunting them down when we lived in the UAE to go kill them!"<br>"I am sorry for your loss, but they did not _kill_ you," Aradia sneered.  
>"They may as well have! I was a <em>child<em> and they left me fur dead. Do you even know Equius' relation to me? His dad was fur-iends with mine in university. That's it. If not fur that I have no idea where I may have been dumped. But again, I focus on the good, my real family, the Zahhaks. They're not purrfect, but I love them. I don't waste my time thinking about the others,"  
>"That is completely different, and you know it,"<br>"I know it's not the same, but I'm trying to get you to understand," Nepeta sighed, frustrated, then asked, "How was Vriska when you saw her?"  
>"She seemed… happy. She was moirails or matesprits with Sollux, though they'd just been… blackrom kissing. I'm not sure what was going on between them,"<br>"Sollux is alive? Feferi will be happy, though not about the Vriska stuff. Still if she wasn't just winding you up, it seems you've got a pissed off Sollux on your hands now."  
>"Why wouldn't she like to know about Vriska and Sollux?" Aradia asked, ignoring the other part of what Nepeta said.<br>"Sollux is Feferi's boyfriend," Nepeta said. "They're utterly infatuated with the sounds of it, or were. Eridan told me when I asked about… uh, the gossip I'd missed,"  
>Aradiabot's face reverted into the blank state that was the default for the fake muscles, a sign that she was very shocked, and how her internal circuits were experiencing somewhat of an overload from the flood of emotions. Vriska had been lying… or telling the truth rather about Sollux and Feferi. All this for nothing. While it was unlikely that she had a chance with Sollux after killing his moirail (she assumed that was what she was to him anyway), now she knew his heart was firmly with Feferi she knew she had no chance. Part of her mind told her that if Feferi was no longer in the picture then Sollux would be available, and Aradia knew not what to think.<br>'_What have I become_?'  
>"Oh, Aradia," murmured Nepeta, and before Aradia knew it, the olive blood had enveloped her in a tight hug. "There's no need to cry,"<br>Cry? Aradia brought her fingers to her cheek and felt a liquid on the synthetic fabric of her face. Synthetic. The sensors in her fingers identified the silicon, then something in her mind told her about the slight wear and tear the seawater had done to the artificial skin on her legs, and the robot girl then clutched Nepeta closer, buried her face in her neck and began to loudly weep.  
>"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Nepeta,"<br>"Shoosh you! I'm angry that you ignored my purr-fectly advice when it came to Vriska, but at the end of the day I'm not the one you should be apologising to. Is this what the crying is about?"  
>"I don't know what is wrong with me! I used to be such a nice happy girl, and now here I am murdering people,"<br>"We've all grown up dif-fur-ent. It's exactly what T.R.O.L.L wanted. I know for sure that if we didn't have all this stupid mutation stuff going on that you would be a happy normal girl,"  
>"But I'm not! I'm not a… a happy normal girl, I'm a fucking robot! I'm glad I'm alive again, but I'm stuck in this stupid metal shell and all I think about is killing people and getting revenge on all those who hurt me, and… I don't know what to do! I hate being like this,"<br>"Maybe Feferi could help you? She dealt with Eridan fur years and we all know how much anger she helped ease,"  
>"No, not Feferi," replied Aradia, shaking her head furiously. All that she had learnt about Sollux and Feferi, and the thought she had about killing the poor girl for something as insubstantial as a crush, she could not bear to face her.<br>"Why not… oh. Of course, is that why you're upset?"  
>"Sorry, it's so stupid! I just… I don't know, everything just got to me all at once I guess. It's not just the Sollux thing, it's also being a robot and all this aggression… I don't know,"<br>"Sounds like you need a moirail. I would but my hands are full with Equius, and I don't even want to think about how bad he would be without me," Nepeta said apologetically.  
>"That's fine, I understand… I just, when you told me about Feferi and Sollux, part of me just thought that killing her would be the best option, and I don't know why! Why am I like this?"<br>"Listen, I know you really don't want to talk to Feferi, but I think it would help a lot. She really is the best there is when it comes to this kind of stuff. You don't need to tell her about the whole wanting to kill her thing, but I really think she could help you. I know you won't kill her. Now shoosh. Go talk to Equius when you're ready about the aggression issues. If it's a problem with your programming then he should be able to fix it,"  
>"Alright," Aradia sniffed. "Thanks,"<br>"That's okay! You're not a bad person… or robot, whatever. E-fur-ryone makes mistakes, you've just got to try and be a better person now,"  
>"Okay, I'll try,"<br>"Just to warn you though, Terezi's mother is also with the others, and she knew Vriska as a child. You're going to have to break the news to her,"  
>Aradiabot nodded at this, a sombre expression upon her face. "You still don't trust me, do you?"<br>There was silence for a while, before Nepeta eventually answered, "I don't know how I feel,"  
>At this, the robot turned her eyes out to the ocean again. "That's fair. Who else is here?"<br>"Currently, its us three, along with Feferi, Eridan and Karkat. They almost got Terezi, but they lost her at the last minute unfortunately,"  
>They walked to the doorway, before the soldier standing guard passed them onto another who began to lead them to where Feferi was waiting.<br>"Oh, they have Karkat, do they?" the robot said with a sly grin as they followed behind the woman leading them about. "I'm sure you appreciate that,"  
>"Shoosh! I don't even like him!" Nepeta exclaimed in a barely hushed whisper, though the flush on her face said otherwise. "I don't know where e-fur-ryone gets this idea!"<br>The soldier took them through the building and into a warm room with a fireplace, where Feferi, Eridan and Equius were sat beside one another, accompanied by a tall older woman. Their soft conversation halted at the entrance of Nepeta and Aradia, with Eridan clearly gawking at Aradia's chassis.  
>"Why don't you take a photo?" she replied dryly, before tapping Equius on his shoulder and asking to have a private word with him.<br>"Wwell sorry, not like I see a sentient robot a' a dead girl i used to knoww ewery day is it?" huffed Eridan. "Jeez,"  
>While walking out, Aradia noticed the lack of Karkat in the room, and wondered what had happened to him.<br>The two of them were taken to an empty conference room instead of the landing pad on the roof, then left alone with instructions to press a button on the wall when they wanted a soldier to come escort them back.  
>"What is it, Aradia?" Equius asked once their escort had left the room.<br>"You know that chip you put in my he-art?" she said to him, trying her best to keep a strict poker face. It worked until her voice broke in the final syllable. She cleared her throat. "The chip you put in my heart."  
>At this Equius turned his face to look at the floor to his left.<br>"Yes, I know the one,"  
>"I can't be bothered to argue or fight about this, I just want to know one thing. Could it possibly cause aggression in me?"<br>The mechanic seemed to be shocked at this, for clearly he had been expecting another fight and hell he certainly deserved it if that had been what Aradia were planning.  
>"Ah, no at all. It was only supposed to… well, stimulate romantic feelings of attraction… to me," he muttered in response. "Aggression would be a stupid thing to include in it,"<br>"Are you sure? This is very important," she insisted. "There isn't a chance that the… forceful removal of it could have caused some short circuiting or something in my emotions, is there?"  
>"Well, I guess theoretically the forceful removal of the chip could have caused a problem. Would you like me to check?" he offered, and after a period of awkward silence, Aradiabot gave a curt nod, before slowly laying herself down on one of the desks.<br>Her mechanic pulled up a chair and lowered himself into it, then reached a hand out towards the chest panel, "Do you mind?"  
>"Sure, though it would have been nice if you asked last time," the robot said softly, anger strongly present in her voice, though an anger she was trying to hold back. "Go ahead,"<br>Pulling out a number of tools from his belt, he placed them on the table before him, then picked up his item of choice and unscrewed a number of minuscule screws to reveal a small panel inset between her breasts. A code was then entered, which made another panel retreat, allowing a small latch to be seen, and upon being pulled, made the left half of her chest click and slowly swing to the side, and under all this, an artificial heart.  
>"I repaired the damage before we left the UAE, there should not be a problem here, though I shall check anyway. We were in somewhat of a rush so it is possible I made a mistake" he murmured, clearly so into his work that he did not sweat profusely as usually would. Aradia stared at the ceiling, trying to avoid looking at the boy for she was still in a foul mood and wanted to avoid violence.<br>They remained in the same position for a further ten minutes as Equius ran tests and the like on the robot's heart, ensuring that there were no errors on it or the surrounding area. It was incredibly surreal for the girl to see her heart beating literally in the hands of someone else, and she was not sure quite how she felt about the situation.  
>"Equius," she said eventually, as she had grown bored. "I have to ask. Why is your screen name so… you know?"<br>At this he froze, flushing a little, then continued his work.  
>"I have always loved horses, and as such one of the maids bought me one of those anatomy books about them for my birthday, so I could begin drawing them if I so chose. For whatever reason, the chat client I joined with Nepeta only allowed me to pick a username that had the initials C T, and naturally I picked a centaur for the first word, then picked a random piece of horse anatomy that began with a T from the book's dictionary at the back. I promise you I knew not what it meant at the time, though it is still only a piece of anatomy in the end. Just one with slightly more… sexual connotations," he explained.<br>"Sure," she snorted, the grimaced as one of the tools he was using dug into part of her insides.  
>"Careful, I'd recommend against laughing while I have tools inside your chest,"<br>After another few minutes of fiddling about in her chest, Equius shut the panels, put in the screws then asked her to sit in the chair before him. This time, he pushed her hair over her shoulder and began to undo screws situated at the base of her skull.  
>Aradia could feel her heart beat beginning to increase as his fingers brushed over the skin on the back of her neck, and was very thankful he was not fiddling about around her false heart. His breath fanning out over her shoulders suddenly made her breath hitch, a strange thing for someone who does not breathe.<br>"Are you okay?" he asked.  
>"I'm fine," she replied quickly, doing her best not to move her head at all.<br>Damn these feelings! This was a boy who had literally installed a microchip into her heart to give her feelings for him, what was she thinking?  
>But she had to know. She had to know why he put a chip in her heart.<br>"Equius?" she asked. "Why did you do it?"  
>He froze.<br>"Why… did I do what?"  
>"You know what,"<br>He said nothing, but finished unscrewing the bolts in the back of her head, and after pulling a similar latch as the one on her chest, the two halves of her head parted and opened out, allowing her equivalent of a brain to slowly rise up and click into position.  
>"I… I have not got a good answer,"<br>"I need to know what you were thinking," she replied, a hint of pleading leaking into her voice.  
>"I think you already know why I did it," His words were barely audible they were so quiet. "I am sorry,"<br>"What was that?"  
>"I am sorry, Aradia. I caused you a great deal of hurt, and gave you a perfectly valid reason to distrust and hate me,"<br>His words were met with silence.  
>"It was a stupid decision,"<br>"But _why_ did you do it?"  
>"I'm infatuated with you," he finally admitted. "I did not know what to do. I had behaved so awfully towards you the past few years so I took a reckless and drastic approach. One I did not think through,"<br>"So that's why you gave me blue blood,"  
>"That, and also ease of acquisition. I know the siphoning trade is not immensely difficult to find, but as far as the rumours go it is immensely expensive to purchase blood, especially in the quantity I needed,"<br>"So not only did you force me into having feelings for me, but you gave me your blood so you could feel better about said feelings!"  
>"Yes. I see how that it was wrong, I'm sorry,"<br>"Sorry isn't going to take back what happened,"  
>"I know,"<br>They fell silent again as Equius began to work on her brain. Aradia closed her eyes for a second, then once open again noticed the light outside had changed; rather than it being completely dark, the sun had begun to peak over the ocean. Had she fallen asleep?  
>"I have finished. My apologies, it seems you fell into a sleep mode while I worked, though it was probably for the best,"<br>"How long were you working?" she asked  
>"I'm not sure, several hours though,"<br>Part of her was flattered that he had done such a thorough job to help her, though there was still the element of distrust, and as such she ran a quick scan on her body to find what had been changed. As she read through the list her robotics had provided, she asked, "Did you find anything?"  
>"I did not find any physical problems that would have indicated increased aggression, however I did find indications that someone may have been accessing your mind. I ran some minor updates and fixes though, which should prevent anyone else tampering with your emotions or breaking into your mind,"<br>"What do you mean by someone has been accessing my mind?"  
>"I found suggestions that someone may have been hacking into the hard drives that make up your mind. How though I'm not sure. But I'm not certain if anything has happened or not, like I said I only found suggestions, no proof,"<br>"How could you know for certain?"  
>"Catch them in the act, or ask someone who has better knowledge of hacking than me,"<br>They paused, trying to think of hackers they knew.  
>"Sollux would certainly be the strongest choice, but none know where he is. As for Karkat, I have memories of him bragging about his skills at hacking but I very much doubt their validity,"<br>"But there is no way that there's something in my mind that would make me aggressive?"  
>"Not that I found,"<br>Aradia did not know how to feel about such a thing. On the one hand, she was glad there was nothing wrong with her mind, but at the same time it meant that the aggression had come from her, and that was terrifying.  
>"Okay, thank you," she said, and stood up from the chair. As they headed for the exit, perhaps because her circuits were still slow from just waking up, she turned and added, "I just… I wish you'd never put that microchip in me!"<br>"I know, I'm truly sorry, Aradia,"  
>"No, you don't understand. I liked you, Equius! You didn't need to put a chip in my heart! I was with you every day for years, and I couldn't feel anything, but something kept pulling me back to you instead of just wandering around by myself. And I was stupid enough to believe that you had actually changed, and got past all the stupid caste stuff, and you were stupid enough to ruin everything with that fucking chip!"<br>Equius' face turned to one of flushed horror.  
>"Oh,"<br>"_Oh_? Is that all you have to say? You idiot! You can create a complete working robotic body from scratch but you don't even know how to just, just _talk to someone_ and tell them how you feel!"  
>"Aradia, please, I'm sorry for all this but you must calm down, this isn't good for you,"<br>"Why don't you install another chip in me! That sure would do the job wouldn't it? Ugh! I just… I hate you!" shouted Aradia, who then covered her mouth with both hands in shock, then whispered softly, "I hate you,"  
>"Ah,"<br>"You just, ugh! You have the gall to be so nice and make me this body and, and you used your own damn blood for it! And then you screw everything up, and look so fucking attractive while doing it. I said it, you're attractive, puberty was very good with you after the sweating phase, but would it _kill you_ to just use more deodorant and tie your hair back or _something_, like, you have no idea how to look nice, who the fuck wears tights with cut offs? Shorts sure, but _cut offs_?" she rambled angrily, then noticed Equius' gobsmacked expression. "Stop looking at me like that!"  
>"I'm so sorry, I never knew,"<br>"Of course you never knew, you don't know how to talk to people! I hate it!" she snarled, before bursting into a fit of relieved laughter. "I'm glad I got that off my chest,"  
>"Yes, well," Equius replied, looking incredibly uncomfortable.<br>"Well what?"  
>"Is my hair and clothing really that unattractive?"<br>With a roll of her eyes Aradia tugged out what was holding her hair in a ponytail, but found it to be a piece of now dried seaweed, so threw it out the windows and hunted about in the drawers instead for an elastic band.  
>"I can't believe the secret base for the US doesn't have elastic bands," she huffed, before eventually finding a pot of them in a filing cabinet and marched over to Equius, tying his hair back in a low ponytail, excluding the strands that were just short enough to escape the band. Aradiabot took full notice of the hitch in his breath as her fingers brushed over the back of his neck, and smirked for now he was in her situation. "There, already better,"<br>His hair had grown much longer over the years they were in the Retainment Organisation, and then in confinement, and this look suited him much more than his almost navel length, freely flowing hair. At least he had bothered to take care of it, unlike some boys Aradia had once known. They gazed at one another for a few seconds, before against her better judgement Aradiabot leant in and gave him a soft kiss on his mouth, one very different to the last they shared. It was warm and gentle, their clasped hands swinging loosely at the waist  
>Then without saying a word, she broke it off and left the room to find the soldier. They did not talk again that night.<p>

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><p><strong>AN:** Hellooo, sorry for how late this is! I've had a LOT of deadlines recently, but they are done now uwu  
>It feels like very little happens in this, even though a lot is revealed and it's just as long as all the other recent chapters (I SWEAR I'm trying to cut down on the waffle but…) Also that's been a kiss every chapter for the past three or whatever, idk how that happened o_o<br>Also I don't mean to sound ungrateful or anything, but please please please keep reviewing! It's incredibly disheartening to post a chapter of writing that you've put weeks of hard work into, only to lose a good five followers and favs each and get maybe two or three reviews if I'm lucky. If there's something you like or dislike please let me know, so long as you aren't rude obviously! I really appreciate every review I get, even though I am slow at replying to them, but on the rare occasions when I have free time, it's really hard to want to sit down and write when my past chapters have been received so negatively. I can't improve without knowing what to fix :(  
>Anyway sorry for the downer! Thank you as always for reading, I hope you enjoyed this! 38)<p> 


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